


Missing In Action

by Duganator01



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, At some parts, Beyond canon-typical violence, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Post-Volume 3 (RWBY), Post-Volume 5 (RWBY), Team as Family, Torture, up to a point
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:22:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 32,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21990409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duganator01/pseuds/Duganator01
Summary: He remembered waking from a nightmare, the first one in months. Going for a walk to try to clear his thoughts before trying to get back to sleep.  A gang of people, reeking of alcohol and worse things jumping him in an alley nearly in sight of their front door.He remembered a sharp sudden blow to the back of his head, a burst of bright stars in front of his eyes, and then nothing. Jaune was out before he hit the ground.
Relationships: Anything if you squint, Blake Belladonna & Ruby Rose & Weiss Schnee & Yang Xiao Long, Jaune Arc & Lie Ren & Nora Valkyrie
Comments: 52
Kudos: 79





	1. Taking Stock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When in a new situation, it's always best to take stock of your surroundings. Even if you can't see very much at all.

_‘Oh fuck do my shoulders hurt…’_

This was the first thought to greet Jaune as he swam up from the murky darkness of unconsciousness. As first thoughts went, he supposed it could have been worse, but it still wasn’t exactly the most pleasant thing to wake up to.

Blinking his eyes open, it was not immediately apparent that they had been opened at all with how dark it was. He could barely see a few feet in front of him, although what he could see seemed clear enough. 

The only thing messing up the clear view was his breath fogging up in front of his eyes, and the way Jaune’s luck was running he’d probably freeze to death soon anyways. Apparently the people who’d kidnapped him hadn’t bothered to leave him with some way to warm himself up.

Wait...kidnapped...Oh _fuck!_

The rush of memories hit Jaune like a sledgehammer. Waking from a nightmare, the first one in months. Going for a walk to try to clear his thoughts before trying to get back to sleep. A gang of people, reeking of alcohol and worse thing jumping him in an alley nearly in sight of their front door. 

He remembered a sharp sudden blow to the back of his head, a burst of bright stars in front of his eyes, and then nothing. He was out before he hit the ground.

How long had he been out? Judging by the pitch blackness he was now squinting into, either not long or it was the next night. Jaune was hoping it was the former, because he didn’t even want to think about the brain damage he would’ve gotten from being knocked out for more than 12 hours.

That led him to the thought he’d been trying to ignore, trying to avoid. Where was he? Squinting into the darkness he couldn’t see anything he recognized, although since he couldn’t see much of _anything_ through the gloom that wasn’t much of a surprise. 

What did surprise him was that he’d been kidnapped. Him of all people. This sort of activity was usually reserved for the silver-eyed warriors and heiresses of their friend group. This was a new and concerning development that Jaune hadn’t expected himself to get into.

Were his friends looking for him?

Jaune kicked himself for even entertaining the idea. They probably weren’t even awake, and they wouldn’t be for hours. He wondered if anyone even realized he was missing yet, but he could hear no hint of a search being made for him.

He tried not to let that thought faze him. Tried not to think about how long he might have been missing already.

The best thing he could think to do was to get up and try to figure out where he was. He had no illusions about how likely he was to be rescued. The few statistics he knew about abductions were all indicating that his already-cold body would be found by some stranger in a dumpster. 

He didn’t watch crime shows, not often anyway, but his journey across Anima with team RNJR had certainly darkened his outlook enough to know that his outlook on getting out of here alive was grim. Jaune put his hands down to his sides to push himself up and-

-and the back of his head whacked against the wall he’d been leaning against before he tried to get up. He groaned loudly as stars burst in front of his eyes, and the sound echoed dully around the dark empty space he was trapped in. 

When he’d tried to get up, something had stopped him from bringing down his hands. Squinting up in the direction of his hands, he saw that they were cuffed together with thick heavy metal cuffs...and attached to a rusty iron loop on the wall he’d woken up leaning against.

Well that explained why his shoulders were aching so much.

_‘That’s a hell of a mystery I didn’t think was a mystery, and one that didn’t really need solving, but damn if it didn’t just get solved,’_ he thought to himself, chuckling weakly before breaking off into wet coughing as the movement tugged at what felt like healing bruises on his chest. 

He couldn’t find it in himself to celebrate past that, however, seeing as how the solution to the mystery was the fact that he was chained to a wall. In the dark. With no way to get out. _‘And with probably cracked ribs,’_ thought Jaune wryly, shifting slightly to sit in a more comfortable position. 

And Jesus _fuck_ was it cold.

Tugging against the cuffs, he recalled the little he knew about escaping handcuffs. It wasn’t much if he was being honest, and most of it came from watching movies. Spruce Willis had to do this in one of his movies, didn’t he? Or was that in Chasing Borne? He couldn’t remember, and the small amount of focus that he had been given was starting to slip away.

From the tug in his shoulders Jaune knew he had to be pulling quite hard on the cuffs around his wrists, but he couldn’t seem to feel that. With the warm buzz of adrenaline fading from his system, the surrounding cold was beginning to seep in. 

He couldn’t feel his hands, or his feet for that matter, but whether that was from the cold or from sitting on the hard ground for who knew how long he didn’t know. His armor was missing, and his memory was hazy enough that he couldn’t even remember if he’d put it on before leaving the house, as were his hoodie, and boots. He could barely feel icy water soaking through the bottom of his socks. 

Jaune would never admit to anyone that he was genuinely upset about the hoodie. That thing was limited edition. 

How long had he been slumped there in the dark? There was no way to know. It could’ve been hours or only a couple of minutes. Jaune strained his ears, but he couldn’t hear anything that might indicate where he was. No rain outside, no cars driving past, no sleepy birds calling to each other, no dogs barking. Somewhere in the dark recesses of wherever he was, he could hear water dripping, like someone had left a sink on.

_Drip, drip, drip…_

He tried counting the drips to pass the time. _One, two, three...forty-four, forty-five, forty-six...one hundred and two, one hundred and three, one hundred and four...one hundred and four...one hundred…_

But he couldn’t go to sleep, no matter how much he longed to. He was in enemy territory, and sleeping was a weakness he couldn’t afford to give in to. Letting his guard down might be the difference between life and death, and Jaune didn’t even know why he of all of them had been taken yet.

_‘Gods I’m so tired…’_

Jaune jerked his head up as it fell onto his chest. Sleeping was a bad idea. It was cold, and he was in an unknown place with a head injury. Sleeping was bad. Right? His mind, muddled as it was with cold and lack of sleep, couldn’t seem to decide whether that should worry him or not. Couldn’t decide whether it was good or bad. It was...bad? He seemed to think it was bad. So he shouldn't sleep. Oh but he _wanted_ to, _needed_ to…

The door to his cell creaked open, but Jaune was already asleep. Dragged down into the cord reached of unconscious by a welcoming head injury, the grasp of the cold, and the sedative that had finally worked through his plentiful Aura.

Slickly light from the open door shone a stripe down his face. A man squinted in at the unconscious teen, hanging limply from cuffs attached to a grimy stone wall. “Looks like he’s finally out then…” the man muttered to someone out of sight.

“I’d better tell the boss. He’ll want to start as soon as possible,” the man’s companion replied.

“As soon as possible…” the first man grumbled, entering the room. He was tall, with scraggly dark hair, and a sour expression on his face. He leaned close to Jaune’s face, examining the teen’s slack-jawed expression with distaste. “Don’t like drugging them,” he said, kicking Jaune’s prone form in the ribs.

“Aww, why not?” his companion sneered, entering behind his friend and leaning on the wall by the open door. This man was short, thin, with a shock of blonde hair covering his head like a haystack. The scar curling its way up the side of his face crinkled unpleasantly when the man smiled. “Going soft now, are we Jackson?”

“Shut the fuck up, Gelb, or I’ll gut you myself,” the first man, Jackson, growled back, fishing a ring of keys out of his pocket. “They just scream less when they’re out of it,” he explained, unlocking the chain from the wall and letting Jaune drop to the floor like a sack of potatoes. 

The second man, Gelb, raised his hands in defeat, and turned to leave. “Fine, fine, whatever you say,” he said, sidling back out the door. “I’ll tell the boss man it’s ready,” he called over his shoulder, “You get it to room six.”

“Way ahead of you,” Jackson growled, and scooped up the chain from the floor. It was still attached to the cuffs looped around Jaune’s wrists, and the teen was hauled up off the floor by his arms. Keeping one hand on the chain, the hulking man exited Jaune’s cell, dragging the knight along the ground behind him. 

Finally the fun could begin.


	2. Beautiful New Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Breakfast is an ordeal with nine people living in one house. Should be easier with only eight then.

Mornings were nothing if not hectic. With eight teens of varying appetites, heights and speeds, all rocketing around the kitchen, along with with their one very tired guardian, it was usually best if Ren got up to start making breakfast before anyone else woke up.

There were usually three stages of waking among their group. The early risers: those people who grew up with siblings and knew to nab the limited bathroom space when it was still available. The middling crew: Those who would wake up in their own time, and would usually stumble into the kitchen just in time to nab the first few pancakes Ren made. 

And then there were the late risers. It was better for everyone involved if those two were just left to wake up and meander down in their own time.

Weiss was usually up first, brewing a fresh cup of coffee and refusing to talk to anyone until she’d had her first cup. Blake and Oscar followed soon after. Blake to go on a morning run, and Oscar who had just become far too used waking up early after many years of early morning farm chores.

Ren woke up to the sound of birds chirping sleepily. He breathed in deeply and heard the soft but rushed footsteps of one Ruby Rose on her way to the bathroom. Passing her in the hallway, he nodded and smiled in response to her quick morning greeting. 

He’d elected to let Nora sleep in, as she was likely to hit him over the head with her pillow if he tried to rouse her without a large helping of pancakes ready to placate her. Jaune had been missing from his room, but he’d heard their leader thrash his way out of bed sometime in the night, after what could only have been a nightmare.

It wouldn’t have surprised him to find out that Jaune had been training all night, and had crashed on the living room couch to avoid waking them a second time.

“Good morning, Weiss,” Ren said as he entered the kitchen. Weiss merely nodded in response, looking much more rumpled than she would normally be caught dead looking. But she was sipping from a cup of coffee, so Ren knew that she’d be ready for normal conversation before too long.

As Ren set to work on breakfast, Ruby bounced into the kitchen. Her hair was wrapped up in a towel, and she was wearing her cape, but other than that she was still in her pajamas. “Morning, guys! ” she called perkily, crossing and pulling a couple plates from the cupboard. Oscar waved nervously back at her from where he was seated fully dressed with a bowl of cereal. “Aw you already ate Oscar?”

“Well yeah I just… figured it would be simpler, I didn’t know-” he started, but Ruby waved him away.

“It’s all cool, food is mostly every hunter for themself,” Ruby explained, replacing one of the plates.

“Good morning, Ruby,” Ren said, transferring a few pancakes to a plate, which she quickly nabbed. He’d known this was going to happen, but he was hoping to have more than a few done by the time Nora woke up and stumbled her way down to them.

“Uncle Qrow been down yet?” Ruby asked through a mouthful of pancake as she put the kettle on for more hot water. Blake would want tea when she got back from her run, and it would be good for Qrow to have something other than alcohol this early in the day. And besides, she wanted her cocoa.

“Not as I’ve seen,” he responded, stirring the batter a bit more. “But Oscar and Weiss have been awake longer than me.”

“I haven’t seen your uncle yet, either,” Oscar piped up from the table.

“No Jaune yet?” Ruby asked, taking the shrieking kettle off the heat and pouring the boiling water into three cups. She put a tea bag into one of them to steep, and started stirring cocoa mix into the other two.

“He has been training all night and it wouldn’t hurt to let him sleep in a bit longer.”

“Yeah I guess…” she said, setting plates down on the table. “Still, he’s usually awake before I am.”

“Who is?” Blake asked, peeking in, looking and sounding winded.

“Jaune,” Ruby responded, passing her the tea she’d been making. “Nobody’s seen him yet.” She tugged the towel from her hair and tousled the red streaked hair a bit to have it dry faster. “You’ve been up longer though, you seen Jaune?”

“Mm,” she hummed noncommittally, one of her ears twitching as she took a sip from her cup. “No I haven’t, but nobody else was even awake by the time I left the house, sorry.” Blake passed her cup back to Ruby, nabbed a slice of bacon from Ren’s growing plate of cooked food, and exited the kitchen.

“Weiss might still be in there!” Ruby called down the hallway after her, and Blake waved in acknowledgement.

“Don’t shout so loud,” a low voice behind Ruby. “I’ve got enough of a headache as it is.”

“Oops, sorry Uncle Qrow,” Ruby apologized as the man sidled past her into the kitchen. “I made you coffee!” 

“Thanks kiddo,” Qrow chuckled, and ruffled her hair, leaving it sticking in spiky strands pointing in all directions. Ren passed him a plate of pancakes and bacon. Qrow winced when Ren’s distraction caused the teen to knock the prepared coffee off the counter. “Aw hell, that’s on me-” Qrow started, putting the plate on the table before an accident could befall it.

“Don’t worry,” Ruby said, passing her uncle the back-up coffee. “I thought ahead this time.” Qrow took it gratefully and muttered his thanks.

“Now you don’t have one for Weiss though,” Ren reminded her, stirring a second batch of pancakes. A crashing sound from down the hall let him know that Nora was finally awake, and there would be hell to pay if there were no pancakes when she got to the kitchen.

“I can make my own coffee, thank you very much,” Weiss said, entering the rapidly crowding kitchen and stealing a mug from Ruby. “Not that I would want one with the obscene amounts of sugar that Ruby adds to hers,” the ex-heiress snarked, shooting a glance at Ruby who chuckled to herself from behind her cup of cocoa. 

“I. Demand. Pancakes!” Nora exclaimed, making her entrance into the kitchen at long last. 

“Good morning to you, too, Nora,” Ren chuckled, passing her the plate of pancakes that he’d been reserving for her. She was eating them before she even sat down, gulping down syrup in nearly equal measure.

“Where’s the kid?” Qrow asked, swirling his coffee in one hand. When nobody answered, he clarified a just a little bit more. “You know, the blonde one. Kinda tall.”

“I haven’t seen him yet,” Weiss replied, settling in a chair next to Oscar with her coffee. “Which is strange, because it has become nearly a routine to crash into him in the hallway.” She started combing her fingers through her hair and putting into a braid down her back. “He’s probably just asleep.”

“I dunno, he’s usually up by now,” Ruby said, glancing out down the hall in the direction of Yang’s room. She could hear movement, so her sister was awake at least. “Are you sure that nobody’s seen him?”

“Blake was up first.”

“Yeah, she said she left before anyone was up though.”

“He’s probably just passed out on the couch,” Nora piped up, finally having eaten enough to enter the conversation. Her plate was now practically empty, and she was already bugging stealing the bacon off Ren’s plate. Ren paid her no mind. He wasn’t going to eat it anyway, but Nora preferred to steal his bacon rather than get her own. 

“I can go get him, I-I mean, if you want,” Oscar offered, putting his empty bowl in the sink. “I’m up anyways.”

“Nah, I’ll do it,” Ruby said, “Don’t worry about it, be back in a jiff!” And she zipped out of the room in a flurry of rose petals.

“Hey sis! Watch where you’re goin’!” came an annoyed shout from the hallway.

“Sorry Yang! There’s food in the kitchen, I’m just getting Jaune.”

Yang wandered into the kitchen, looking much more awake than Nora had. “She’s getting Jaune?” the blonde asked, nabbing one of the few remaining pancakes, and grinning at Nora when she squawked in protest.

“Nobody has seen him all morning,” Ren explained, pointedly not looking at Nora as she not-sneakily stole the rest of his food off his plate. 

Ren might need to make more food after all. Which wasn’t a problem in itself, but he had been hoping to get to stay sitting. At this rate there wasn’t going to be any food left over by the time Jaune got here.


	3. Had To Hide Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mr. Blue you did it right, but soon comes Mr. Night. Creeping over, now his hand is on your shoulder. Never mind, I'll remember you this way.

“I heard him get up last night and leave,” Yang offered, plopping down into the seat the Oscar had vacated, “if he’s missing.”

“You heard the kid leave?” Qrow asked, suddenly looking more alert. “As in, leave the house?”

“He definitely got up at least,” Nora brought up, gesturing sharply at Ren with a piece of his own bacon, “This guy woke up, and then wouldn’t get back to sleep.”

“How did you know I was awake?”

“I have my ways,” Nora replied, grinning cheekily at Ren who rolled his eyes. “But yeah, Jaune probably just went on a walk to clear his mind. Calm down. That sort of thing.” 

“Guys, he’s not on the couch!” Ruby shouted from the other room. “Are you sure he’s not just in his room?”

“I’ll check,” Oscar offered, pushing off the counter and looking thankful to have something to do.

“Who’s not on the couch?” Blake asked, sidling past Oscar, pulling on her jacket, and handing Yang her hairbrush.

“Thanks Blakey,” Yang said, taking it from her and working at some of the tangles in her mane of golden curls. “It’s Jaune, nobody’s seen him apparently.”

“But did he leave the house?” Qrow asked, relinquishing his food to his niece.

“I dunno, probably,” Yang mumbled through a mouthful of Qrow’s food. “I heard a door open, but didn’t you say that Vomit Boy got up a lot while you guys were traveling?”

“Yes, to train,” Ren nodded, putting pans in the sink and packing up the remaining foodstuffs into cupboards. “He preferred to be left alone, but he was always back by morning.”

“Well there you have it,” Weiss concluded, finishing her braid and smoothing her nightdress, “Nothing to worry about.”

“He’s not in his bedroom,” Oscar spoke up, dodging a stream of red rose petals and peeking back into the kitchen. 

“Well of course not,” Nora laughed, “We would have seen him if he was just asleep, silly!”

Ruby zipped back into sight, looking slightly concerned for the first time. “Nora are you sure you heard him leave?”

She looked taken aback. “I heard one of the outsidey doors open, if that’s what you mean, but all of them sound the same, ya know?”

“Oscar, go check the other rooms,” Ruby instructed. 

Oscar nodded and ducked back out. “I’m coming, too,” Nora piped up, jumping up from her seat and bounding after him. “Two sets of eyes are better than one, we’ll find Jauney in no time!”

“Ren, I thought you said he was training?” Ruby asked, letting Nora past her.

“I...thought he was?” Ren said, his brow furrowed in confusion. “Do you think he wasn’t?”

“Well his armor and weapons are still in his room.”

“Wait his armor is in his room?” Yang spoke up, sounding surprised. “So you’re saying that he  _ left _ without any form of protection?”

“He’s not in Yang and Blake’s room!” Nora called down the hallway. After a moment, she continued with, “And he’s not in your room Ruby!” The inhabitants of the kitchen watched as she dashed past, dragging Oscar by one hand. 

“We can’t find him anywhere,” the farm boy yelped, in the split second he had in the doorway before Nora tugged him further down the hall.

“Are we thinking that something happened?” Blake asked hesitantly, sounding none too pleased with the idea.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She’s saying that maybe there’s a reason your friend didn’t come back from his walk,” Qrow said, ignoring the pointed looked Weiss shot him. “I’m gonna call some people, see if anyone’s seen the kid.”

“So you do think he’s missing?” Ruby asked, meeting her uncle at the door.

“I’m not sayin’ anything,” Qrow shrugged her off, “Just making sure nothing’s going on.”

With Qrow occupied with calling whoever he was, the rest of them split up to more thoroughly search the house. They scoured the building from top to bottom, stern to aft, and several extra directions as well, but nobody found hide nor hair of Jaune.

They all reconvened in the living room, Ruby waiting for her uncle to return, Ren and Nora flanking her. Oscar even tried consulting Ozpin, but the man had no answers for once. They didn’t know whether that was a good or a bad sign.

When Qrow slouched back into the room, Ruby and Nora pounced on him before he even had a chance to put scroll back. “Hey give a man some space, sheesh,” he said, less roughly than he normally would have done.

The two relented, back up to where Ren was, but none of them were doing a very good job of hiding how worried they were. “So?” Ruby pestered, seemingly unable to hold herself back anymore. “Do you know what happened?” Behind her, the others stopped what they were doing and were very pointedly  _ not _ listening in on the conversation.

Qrow ran one hand through his already messy hair and slumped a little. “From what I’ve been able to gather, it seems like he got snatched.”

All the air had been sucked out of the room. That had to be the only reason why everyone suddenly seemed to have lost the ability to speak. “Snatched?” Blake almost whispered from the couch.

Qrow nodded hand itching for his flask. “Sympathizers, mercenaries, that sort of thing,” he clarified, sounding none to pleased about it. “They get information outta people and then sell it to the highest bidder.”

“Don’t you mean  _ try _ to get information?” Yang piped up, folding her arms in front of her chest. 

“There’s no try, at least not with the group who I think snatched the kid.” Qrow shook his head.

“You know them?” Weiss asked, sounding astounded. “Why in Remnant would you know people who kidnap and extort a teenager for information?”

“It’s a long story, but believe me when I say they have a one hundred percent success rate,” he explained, looking grim, and sounding worse. “They get the info, no matter the methods.”

The methods. What the hell could Qrow mean by  _ methods? _ Jaune was missing, had been for hours at least, who knew what could be happening to him at this very moment. The possibilities were chasing each other in circles around Nora’s head, each worse than the last. Ruby looked paralysed, and Weiss and Oscar kept exchanging nervous glances. Blake had taken one of Yang’s hands in her own, but neither girl was looking at each other.

And would he tell them anything? They all knew that Jaune would rather die than let anything happen to any of them, and giving up even the smallest scrap of information could put them all in danger. But...everyone had a breaking point. 

And what would break first? His body...or his spirit? When they found him, because they  _ would  _ find him, would he be the same? They just hoped that they found him and brought him home before there wasn’t anything left of Jaune Arc to bring home.


	4. Maelstrom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the moments when you’re in so deep, it feels easier to just swim down.

Jaune wished he could say that he woke up gently, smoothly transitioning from the land of sleep to the waking world. That wasn’t even close to what happened, but in dark twisted sort of luck, he couldn’t really remember the waking up process. One minute he was unconscious, and the next he was awake.

There was a searing pain on one side of his face as well, but he was sure that was unrelated.

He couldn’t move his arms, or really his anything. That wasn’t really the best first thought to have, but Jaune supposed it could’ve been worse.

How it could be worse...well he’d get back to you on that. 

How much time had passed? Was it the next day or-?

Another sharp stinging pain, and Jaune nearly fell out of his chair from the force of it. Jaune winced back from the slap and squinted up into the blindingly bright light hanging over him. Right. Kidnapped. Unknown motives and all that. Focus Jaune.

“Good morning, sunshine,” growled a man’s voice from just out of sight. More than ever Jaune longed for the ability to move, to turn and see who was talking. The man sounded less than pleased to see Jaune awake. 

“What did I say about talking to the kid?” A silky smooth voice with the hint of a threat said from the darkness in front of him. Jaune stopped trying to crane his neck around to see the first voice, and snapped it back to focus on where the voice had come from.

The man’s silhouette was big, all broad shoulders and barrel chest, but he was smiling. A wolf’s smile. Or at least, he looked that way from the limited amount of the man’s Jaune could see through the light over head. 

“Right, sir. Sorry sir,” the first voice grumbled from behind him. So the big guy was in charge then. That...didn’t help him  _ much _ admittedly, but it was a mite better than the no information he’d had before. Now if only he could figure out what they wanted.

“Who“Who are-” Jaune got cut off by a rough cough, and changed direction half way through his sentence. “What do you want with me?” He wheezed, squintting through the gloom at the indistinct shape of the guy in charge. Sometimes the best course of action was just to be direct.

“Ah ah ah,” the man chuckled softly, “You don’t ask the questions, kid, I do. And I don’t believe I gave you permission to talk. So let me teach you the rules, kid.” The man’s silhouette nodded to the guy behind Jaune, and suddenly his right arm was caught in a vice grip.

“The rules are simple, easy enough for even you to understand,” the man said, stepping forward into Jaune’s little circle of light. He was big, with features chiseled from stone, and hair buzzed down to the scalp. Like a military officer from an action movie. “Rule one: I ask the questions, not you,” Commando said, and the grip on Jaune’s arm tightened, “Rule two: if you don’t answer, there will be consequences.”

Consequences?! What the hell did that mean?! And  _ gods _ if that guy could let go of his arm, he’d really appreciate it, because that was starting to really hurt.

“And finally, rule three: I’m like king around here, kind of the head honcho,” Commando continued, the reasonable tone set at odds to the table of “tools” that were revealed when he moved, and the tub of water that Jaune could only hope was for cleaning said tools. “And as a king, I expect respect from my subjects, and that includes you,  _ boy _ . So talking out of turn…” He waved one hand, searching for the right words. “Such things can’t go unpunished.” Commando settled on, giving the man holding Jaune’s arm the go ahead.

And then he  _ yanked _ , and Jaune’s shoulder whited out into a pinpoint of agony. 

There was pain, and then there was  _ pain _ . This definitely fell into the second category. Someone was screaming, it might’ve even been him.

“Now let’s try this again,” Commando’s voice swam back into his range of hearing, just as Jaune’s screams petered off. Tears were prickling at the corners of his eyes, but for now he was back. “I am going to ask you a question, and if I don’t like the answer I get...well, you can guess what’ll happen.” Jaune just nodded, not trusting that he’d be able to get away with a verbal response. 

“We’ll start easy. What’s your name, kid.” Jaune opened his mouth to respond, any name but his own jumping to his mind, but Commando held up one finger to stop him. “And word of advice, no lies, because I’ll know if you’re lying. And you  _ don’t _ want to lie to me, kid.”

Jaune’s arm gave a particularly painful throb, and his mouth shut with a snap. He’d know if he was lying? But how? Was it his Semblance, or did this guy already know his name? Or maybe he wouldn’t be able to tell, and it was all a trick. Or maybe it was a double trick to see if Jaune would actually answer with his real name. Or  _ maybe- _

Commando’s henchman gave a yank to Jaune’s arm that had him yelping out in pain and bursting out with, “Jaune! Jaune Arc! My name’s Jaune Arc!” Well there went any hope of them maybe not knowing who he was. Nice going, idiot. If the questions got more sensitive, he’d have to try harder than that measly effort to keep the answers from them.

“Now, was that so hard, Jauney?” Commando asked, sounding extremely pleased with himself. Jaune glared up at him, but if anything the man looked even more pleased to see him acting defiant. Acting being the operative word, because Jaune was feeling anything except brave at the moment. 

“Let’s try a harder one now, shall we?” the man asked, as if he actually expected a response from Jaune. “Where is Ruby Rose?”

Jaune felt like he’d been slapped again. Whatever question he’d been expecting, that hadn’t been anywhere close to it. Not even in the  _ ballpark  _ of what he’d been expecting. The man who’d dislocated or maybe broken Jaune’s arm was bustling around behind Commando now, pouring more water into the tub and dragging it closer.

“I don’t know,” Jaune said, as firmly as he could with his voice shaking. His eyes flicked down to the tub of water in spite of himself.

“Hm, interesting,” Commando said, sounding disappointed. “Dunk him.”

This wasn’t directed to anyone in particular, but Commando’s taller henchman took it as an order. Jaune was hauled out of his chair and forced onto his knees in front of the tub of ebony black water. “No, no no, no,  _ please-” _ he was sputtering in sudden panic, but Rando had him by the hair, and then his head was underwater.

It was icy cold. The kind of cold that would steal his breath away if the water weren’t already doing that. Because he’d gone into the water screaming, and inhaled at least one mouthful of water before he could stop himself. Jaune fights to retain what little air he can, but already the freezing water is starting to fill his lungs.

Rando pulled him back out, and Jaune was gulping in breaths of air before he even left the water fully. Coughing desperately to rid his lungs of the hated water and replace it with the air he so desperately needed, Jaune only barely heard Commando say, “I’ll ask again: Where is Ruby Rose?”

“I- I don’t know,” Jaune spluttered, somewhat less confidently than before with his teeth chattering from the cold.

“Dunk him again.”

And he was back underwater. Longer this time. His lungs are screaming with pain from the effort of holding the air in, and before too long he gave in again to the instinctual need to breath. His mouth opened and gulped in the needed air, but water poured into his lungs instead. 

There wasn’t any air. He needed  _ air _ . Why couldn’t they understand? He’s going to die. This was how he died, drowned in a bathtub a million miles away from anyone he cared about.

Rando pulled him out again. Jaune couldn’t hear anything with how the water was clogging his ears. Rando dropped him to the floor and his injured arm was shaking with effort as he retched up as much water as he could. He needed air, he  _ needed _ air.

Commando was mouthing words, but he sounded muffled and far away. Jaune couldn’t even see him properly, but his mouth stumbled out what he hoped was a crushing reply.

“Again.”

It must have worked, but Jaune had only gotten a single lungful of air before he was hefted up and dunked.

Pulled out. 

“Where is Ruby Rose?”

“I don’t know.”

“Again.”

Dunked.

How long this continued, Jaune never found out. Commando started switching to other people occasionally. The rest of team RWBY, Jaune’s own teammates, Qrow, Oscar, and others that Jaune didn’t even know. Or maybe he did know them. After a couple dunks in the Tub, Jaune was starting to black out. He couldn’t even remember half of the answers he gave, but he at least had reassurances that he had never answered, because it never stopped.

They tossed him unceremoniously back into his cell.

At least he knew when he landed, if the pain of landing  _ hard _ on his dislocated and potentially broken arm was anything to go by.

Not bothering to stifle the ragged scream that clawed its way up his throat, Jaune didn’t even notice that his hands were being rechained to the wall he’d woken up by just a few hours ago. Had it only been hours? It felt like a lifetime ago. The only thing keeping him upright now was the insistent tug at his wrists that the chain was providing. His arm was on fire.

The cell door slammed, but not soon enough to hide the casual, almost pleased, laughter from the two men who’d put him in here. The rusty bang of the door plunged his cell back into pitch darkness, and at least helped to snap Jaune out of his pain-filled daze. Cautiously lifting his head from the wall where it had been resting, and deeming it safe enough to move, Jaune’s shoulder decided to remind him that it was still there and hadn’t gone anywhere in the last ten minutes.

You’d have thought that he would’ve gotten used to sudden harsh stabs of blinding pain.

Sucking in a sharp breath, Jaune decided to get it over with and see if he couldn’t alleviate at least a little of the acute pain in his general shoulder area. 

He gathered his legs underneath him so he was sitting on his heels. His muscles creaked in protest as they shifted for the first time in hours, stiff from disuse and from cold. Remembering how this went the last time he tried to stand up, he went more cautiously this time. It wasn’t easy going with no hands to help push him up, but after some maneuvering he managed to get to his feet. 

His hands were still held behind him at an awkward angle, he had to keep them in the small of his back, but he was on his feet. The shaking in his knees made it questionable how long that would last, but whatever. After a minute of working at it, he managed to get the frozen cuffs loose from the hook and lowered his hands down behind him.

The tension started to leave his shoulders as he gingerly lowered himself back to the ground. That was  _ so _ much better than before. Even now Jaune could feel the tell-tale tingling in his fingertips as feeling returned to them. Painful, excruciating feeling, but feeling nonetheless. Craning his head around to look, he saw the cuffs had cut into his wrists and now he was bleeding. Great,  _ more _ injuries, and these were his fault.

Gingerly rotating his injured shoulder, probing it as well as he could without being able to see the damn thing, Jaune was beyond relieved to realise that it was not broken. Dislocated? Yes. Bruised? Almost definitely.

Could he fix this? He had to at least try. His ribs felt trampled, his lungs were still screaming from the Tub, and his eyes were burning with tears. Jaune  _ had _ to try to do something useful today.

Fumbling for a moment, he leant back against the wall to give himself any sort of balance. He’d once fallen down the stairs and dislocated all the toes on one of his feet, and if this hurt even half as much, then he was going to need the extra support.

His depleted Aura would do nothing to help with healing this until he popped it back into place. Oooohh, this was going to hurt. Very much. He just had to grit his teeth and do it, there was literally no other way. He was prepared. He was okay.

Before he could back out of it or tense back up, Jaune yanked his shoulder and popped it back into place.

He wasn’t prepared. 

It popped back in with a sickening noise that vibrated right down to his very core, and he crumpled to the ground with a gasping scream. Knives had to be going into his shoulder socket, that was the only solution. Nothing else could hurt this badly. 

He blinked away his pain-induced tears and took a moment to shakily suck in sharp gasps of breath. There. He did it. All was well in the Jaune Arc world. He’d have to get back to that later, when his shoulder wasn’t still throbbing with pain. And when he wasn’t still trapped in a cell who knows where with no hope of escape.

Shifting as gently and slowly as he could, the knight curled into a ball on the cold stone floor. Jaune had to lock his jaw to keep from screaming profanities as he felt his broken ribs agonizingly rub against each other.

Today had been the worst day of his life, without question. Nothing else even came close. And as he drifted off to sleep, Jaune knew in the depths of his heart that the worst was still to come. They would keep asking questions, and he would gladly die rather than answer them, so there was no way the pain would ever abate.

And with that pleasant thought, Jaune’s exhausted mind and body forced him to fall asleep. 


	5. Grace Is Wasted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take all the courage you have left, and waste it on fixing all the problems in your own head.

It’s day three. Or four, maybe. It’s the third time he’d woken up, at any rate. It was hard to tell how much time had passed without windows, and Commando and his lackeys would punish him if he asked any questions. 

That didn’t stop him from asking. The lack of information was driving him crazy. Although the fact that the torture wasn’t slowing down was probably also a major contributor to that. Not that they were any closer to getting answers out of him.

Every muscle ached. He’d had more trips to the Tub than he could count, and he was becoming concerningly used to the feeling of water in his lungs, and of waking up in places he didn’t remember traveling to. The lack of autonomy wasn’t helping things, but his legs weren’t really working properly. He couldn’t focus as well as he should be able to, and the general fuzziness in his brain was affecting his coordination.

That was probably the lack of food’s fault.

Jaune’s stomach rumbled in response, as if sensing that he was thinking about it. He glared down at it, silently willing it to shut up. Not that he could really see it, his cell  _ was  _ pitch black after all.

The food was messing with his perception of time as well. Jaune wasn’t too proud to admit that his life was regimented into time before a meal, and time after a meal. He was a growing boy, food was a must. A requirement. And the lack of it was taking him out of the real world more than he’d like to admit.

The first day or so he’d been able to tell how much time was passing by when his stomach would grumble and protest or ache from lack of food, but now all of him ached and he was always hungry. So that was no help anymore.

Commando at least was providing him with water. Sour, mildewed water, but water nonetheless. So he was unlikely to die anytime soon. Just suffer. And wasn’t that just dandy?

Light peeked into the room as the door creaked open. Jaune squinted into it, wincing after the hours of darkness. “Is it morning already?” Jaune rasped, trying to sound casual. “I thought you guys might’ve forgotten about me.”

The tall man didn’t respond, he never did, but his companion chuckled darkly. That was all the response he ever got out of these two. Fear of Commando kept them from saying anything more to him. Honestly Jaune couldn’t blame them, he’d be scared of Commando, too.

Not that he was scared of the man. Nope. Not at all. And it wasn’t like he was likely to have a meaningful conversation with Rando and Blondie, but he was starving for human interaction. It was just another thing they were depriving him of.

Jaune had taken to talking to himself, if only to make sure that he still  _ could _ talk. He was certain that that was perfectly fine. Nothing to worry about there.

Rando unlocked the chain from the wall and let Jaune drop onto the ground. Every time he’d see it coming, and he’d try his hardest to catch himself, but after who knew how many hours not using his arms… Well it would be easier to compare his arms to limp noodles than to actual arms. 

“Aw come on guys,” Jaune groaned, attempting to push himself back up off the floor, “Didja have to drop me? Every gods damned time.” Rando hefted him up from the floor and yanked him towards the door, perhaps more roughly than he normally would’ve done. 

The barely healing bruises and scrapes on his wrists flared with pain. His shoulder wasn’t pleased either, and was telling him so through a morse code message of lightning bolts and pain and throbbing. Fun stuff! Good stuff. “Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed today,” Jaune grumbled, and got clubbed in the side of the head for his trouble.

Blondie led the way down the hallway, twirling the keys on his finger and whistling merrily. Jaune glanced around the dark hall, trying to see if there was some sign posted to explain why Blondie seemed to cheery. Maybe it was the man’s birthday. Well too bad, Blondie, you weren’t gonna be getting a present from him, no-sir-ee bob.

Jaune belatedly realized that he was muttering this all under his breath when Blondie chuckled again. Dammit Jaune, keep it together. Can’t crack this early, he had a responsibility to everyone to keep it together. 

Tensing against his will as they approached the now too-familiar door in front of the room with the Tub, Jaune dug in his heels, anything to stop them from going in the room. And then they were passing by the door. Jaune sagged in relief, feet stumbling over themselves when Rando yanked the chain to get him moving again.

A new torture then? Jaune dreaded to think of what Commando could’ve come up with now. Lasers? Sharks? Laser sharks?! The possibilities were endless. 

Blondie was coming to a halt by a door now, and pulling it open to let Rando drag him in. Jaune followed cautiously, eyes roving the new space for any way to escape, or for any hint of what was coming.

It was a small room. Concrete walls, not a crack to be seen, and a single chair. The chair looked like one of those ones he’d seen in the hairdressers his mom and then his sisters would drag him to, the ones with the big globe thingies over them. This one looked far less welcoming though.

The straps on the arms, legs, and headrest would do that. Fat black wires were running to it from a metal rectangle of a machine in the corner. Commando was standing by the machine, fiddling with dials, flipping switches, pressing buttons. 

Jaune tried not to think of how much this set up looked like the vault in Beacon. He wouldn’t be able to help  _ anyone _ if his mind got sucked back into the past.

Rando shoved him into the chair, and got one of the manacles locked over Jaune’s arm before he could jump up. Blondie got the other arm locked in, and then fastened the ones around his chest. “So, Boss Man, what’s the plan for today?” Jaune called over to the man, doing his best to ignore what the two men were doing.

He couldn’t move again. Great. Just dandy. 

“Tsk, tsk, Jauney,” Commando chided him from the controls, “What have we gone over about asking questions?” The helmet thing was lowered around Jaune’s head, where it sat menacingly. Or as menacingly as a helmet thingy  _ could  _ sit. 

“And the nicknames, those have gotta end, kid.” He pressed a button and a pair of somethings detached from inside the helmet and spiked into the skin at his temples with a sharp sting of pain. They...They actually broke through the skin! How the  _ hell _ did they do that? What happened to his Aura?! “Insubordination is a big no-no around here.”

Commando pressed a button on his console, and sparks of electricity arced from the machine directly into Jaune’s scalp. 

Now, Jaune had been electrocuted before. He’d been an idiot teenager, and zapped his fingers with batteries. Once one of his younger sisters turned the lights back on while he was changing them and he fell off a ladder from the shock. And with being on a team with Nora the human lightning bolt, electrocution was an occupational hazard.

This was nothing like that.

He jumped as the electricity seemed to short circuit the neurons in his brain. His muscles spasmed and contracted involuntarily, receiving too many signals and too few signals simultaneously. And he could feel the skin around the electrodes burning and blistering. 

Jaune was used to passing, accidental charges. He was in no way prepared for a focused shock, meant to stun and hurt.

The shock only lasted a second, but even that was one second too long. Jaune sagged against his restraints, glaring up at Commando when the man chuckled. “Yeah that stings a bit doesn’t it, boy?” Commando took up the now familiar spot in front of Jaune and the shorter of the two henchmen took his place at the controls.

Jaune pulled against the restraints experimentally, but he couldn’t budge them an inch. He wasn’t an idiot, he knew what was coming now. Question time.

“Let’s begin,” Commando said, standing at attention before him and crossing his arms behind his back. “Where is the Relic of Knowledge?”

“Like I’d tell you that,” Jaune scoffed, and strained against his bonds when a jolt of energy shot through him, frying his nerve endings.

“What have I said about back talk, kid?” the man tsked, and nodded to Blondie at the controls. Blondie changed something, and the machine he was strapped into hummed a little louder. Jaune grimaced nervously and glanced over at the man. “Don’t worry about him, worry about me,” Commando interrupted, snapping his fingers. “Now, where is the Relic of Knowledge?”

“I don’t know-” he started, getting cut off by a longer, and somewhat stronger jolt of electricity. Jaune yelped in pain, biting his tongue to keep from crying out more, his muscles going rigid and his head pounding. His eyes were wide open, and he couldn’t close them if he wanted to. After a second that lasted an eternity, the pain stopped and he slumped against his bonds.

“Don’t lie to me.” Commando was speaking before the aftershocks even got out of his system. The machine hummed a little louder, and Jaune shifted in his restraints as well as he could. He squeezed his eyes shut, relying on years of doing that and having his headaches lessen. It didn’t help this time, but it had been worth a try. “Let’s try this again: Where is the Relic of Knowledge?” 

Jaune just shook his head, not trusting himself to not mouth off again. Commando must have given the signal, because his world exploded in pain again. Behind his closed eyelids, Jaune could swear he could  _ see  _ bolts of lightning shooting across his vision.

His mind was on fire, too many thoughts shooting along his neurons. Somebody was screaming, it might even be him. In an effort to stop, he bit down on his tongue until the coppery taste of blood filled his mouth, decided that he would rather lose his vocal chords than his tongue, and went right back to screaming.

“Okay, that’s gonna start to hurt pretty soon” Jaune stuttered, the aftershocks of electricity making the words feel sharp and pointed in his mouth.Or maybe that was from all the yelling. Who’s to say.

An image of the lamp sprang unbidden into Jaune’s mind. He could see it now. Intricate twirling gold framework like lace holding a softly glowing blue lamp. It would be on the table in the living room, or hung swinging from Ruby or Oscar’s belt. 

Jaune hesitated, pain pulsing in his head like a jackhammer. It would be so easy to just say where it was.

But he couldn’t. If they knew where the lamp was, they would know where his friends were. And he wouldn’t risk their safety for anything.

“Go to hell,” he spat as defiantly as he could while strapped into an electric chair, delighting in the way that smile finally vanished from Commando’s face.

The two electrodes pressed into his temples and all thoughts fled his mind as the pain in his head increased a thousand-fold. Next thing he knew, he was  _ screaming. _ His world blotted out, and all he could feel was the tormenting feel of mind-numbing  _ agony _ . It hurt, oh gods it hurt. Stop. Stop it. Please just  _ end it! _

He’d answer any question they gave him now. Anything at all just to get out of this.They were still asking him things, he could see their mouths moving, but he couldn’t hear a thing over the world-ending mind-shattering pain. The knight couldn’t even bring himself to stop screaming long enough to beg for them to stop.

Jaune was dying. He was already dead. He’d always hoped that death was painless, but there was no way this much pain could exist in the living world.

Unable to bear the pain any longer, Jaune’s world went dark.

Commando stopped his line of questions when the boy went limp in the harness. Hm. How typical. But they’d found the upper limit of the boy’s pain tolerance at least. That would prove useful in the coming days, if the boy even lasted that long.

He had to admit, the boy had lasted longer than he’d expected, and had refused to give them any answers to boot. But no matter. He would break in time, they all did.

Jaune woke up again in his cell, chained to the wall. It was definitely colder than it had been before, his breath was fogging up in the darkness in front of him. His muscles were stiff with disuse, and his stomach ached with hunger.

The last thing he could remember was his insides singing.

His eyes were barely blinking open before he was being dragged back out of his cell. Jaune’s feet didn’t want to cooperate with him, but he did at least manage to stay upright.

Then he was back in the Chair. And it all started again. He managed to last a little long this time, because he knew it was coming, but eventually darkness covered his vision again.

The next time he woke up, he was already being dragged down the hallway. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get his legs to support his weight. His vision was blurred, and hunger was stabbing at his insides like hot knives. Or maybe that was just the after effects of the shocks.

And then the shock treatment again.The session ended sooner than usual that day. He mustered up the strength to throw a couple stinging insults back in Commando’s face. The man did  _ not _ like that..

The third time he woke up already in the Chair. Maybe it was the next day, maybe it was still the same session. Jaune had no way of knowing, and what was the difference either way? The end result would be the same, none of it mattered.

Gods he was so tired. The weight of his hunger and exhaustion weighed down on his bones like a lead blanket.

Jaune learned pretty quickly that speaking out would only get him more pain. Nicknames would get him smacked hard enough that stars would blink into existence in front of his eyes. 

A few sessions in the Chair and many repetitions had him realizing that it was better for everyone if he just kept his mouth shut. Wasn’t like he was going to answer their questions anyway. Giving in and calling Commando “Sir” earned him the meal they’d been denying him, even if it turned his stomach to show that man anything even approaching respect. 

Didn’t help him at all that he wolfed down the food so fast that his starving body immediately rejected it. 

It became a routine. Wake up in his cell or already in one of the other rooms, pain and questioning, passing out, questioning and pain, and then back to his cell. And if he was especially good, then he’d get a scrap of food. Like a dog.

A poorly treated, blatantly abused, grossly underfed dog, but a dog nonetheless.


	6. Roadblock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things getting in the way of your goals was never fun. And when your goal was rescuing a kid from terrorists, it moved even further away from fun.

“What do you mean you still don’t have anything?” Qrow Branwen was squawking into his scroll, sounding not unlike the animal he could transform into. He was looking more tired and disheveled than usual, which was an achievement in itself, but he had good reason to be.

Today marked a month since Jaune Arc had been declared officially missing in action.

Qrow had passed along word as best as he could to the remaining Beacon professors, asking them to keep a lookout for the kid. But whether they’d found him, or whether they’d even gotten his message was anybody’s best guess with the CCTS still down. 

They also contacted whoever the resident authority of Mistral was now that Lionheart was dead. With no headmaster, it was up to the council. Qrow didn’t really expect them to get any results, damn pencil pushers. There were too few Hunters remaining in Mistral to mount much of a search mission anyways.

Ironwood had really pulled through, though, once they’d managed to get a message to him. James was paranoid and uptight, but he was efficient, Qrow had to give him that. Winter was personally in charge of the search operation, and reported directly to the man himself. 

From Atlas, of course. She was unable to leave the city for reasons that James hadn’t felt the need to disclose. Damn idiot, keeping his secrets.

Jaune’s family had been informed at the end of the first week. They were already a wreck, what with barely hearing from the kid since the CCTS went down. It was all Qrow could do to convince them that there was nothing they could do to help, and that it was better to stay at home.

An uncomfortably large amount of the conversation had been spent explaining who he was. Now  _ that _ he would have gladly gone without.

That had been two weeks ago. Two weeks with a sign of neither hide nor hair of the kid. All they knew was that he was probably still in the area. They’d found Jaune’s scroll sometime in the second week, and Qrow knew that it would be harder for the gang to move the kid undetected.

The kids weren’t dealing with the situation well. Jaune’s armor hadn’t been moved. It just sat in his room like he might walk through the door and put it back on any minute now.

He’d had to stop his younger niece from sneaking out at night to search on more than one occasion. Qrow knew that her friend being taken had to be tearing her up inside, but the last thing he needed was more kids going missing.

There wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop them from searching during the day. At least they humored him by not going off alone. He had enough to worry about what with coordinating between Winter and the Mistral council.

Ruby was a wreck. His niece had taken it on herself to keep everyone’s spirits up, but the toll was starting to show. She was frazzled, barely able to focus on anything not involving the search. With her emotions going every which way, but still trying to keep up a facade of strength, he’d found her tucked into a corner  _ sobbing _ more than once.

Qrow knew for a fact that Ruby hadn’t slept a wink since Jaune had gone missing. Every day his niece waited until the sun was just barely peeking over the horizon, and then she dragged her partner out to scour the streets for any sign of their missing friend. They were nothing if not thorough, among the first to leave and the last to get back.

Ruby was wasting no time. She zipped from street to street, taking the ground level while Weiss was on her glyphs above. Rose petals were everywhere. She’d been the one to find Jaune’s scroll.

He’d been under the impression that Weiss didn’t like Jaune very much, but it appeared he’d been mistaken. Whether it was out of some debt she felt she owed the kid, or some misplaced sense of guilt, Weiss certainly wasn’t doing this by halves.

When he’d started to meet resistance with the council, she marched right in and all but literally beat them into line. All cold blue eyes and sharp words, Weiss had thrown her family name around like it was a physical weapon. There was something reminiscent of Glynda in her expression

Having been on the receiving end of that look on more than one occasion, he couldn’t blame the councilmen for falling in line. They were no problem after that.

Qrow had heard from both his nieces about how Weiss had for all intents and purposes  _ escaped _ her family’s mansion, and how she abhorred using her family’s influence to get her way. But she hadn’t hesitated to do so if it meant getting their friend back. He had to hand it to her, he was impressed by her commitment.

The other half of team RWBY was fairing only slightly better, and that was mostly because Ruby was single handedly tanking her half’s outlook.

Blake and Yang clearly still had some baggage between them that he wasn’t going to touch with a ten foot pole, but they’d both pushed it aside in favor of doing all they could to get information. While Ruby and Weiss covered getting information from all legitimate means, Blake and Yang more than handled the less savory half of the spectrum.

His niece seemed to take it as a personal offense that  _ her _ friend was kidnapped and taken for questioning. She blazed through anyone she suspected, and woe befall anyone who got in her way.

She, followed by Blake, raided every nightclub, shady bar, and underground gambling ring, none were safe. He’d seen his niece angry before, blazing hair and eyes, the whole nine yards, but even he had to say that this surprised him. Qrow had only seen her get this protective with Ruby, but seemed like his niece had adopted the kid into their little screwed up family.

He didn’t have to wonder why Yang knew where all the shady people hung out, he knew how hard she’d searched for Raven, but it didn’t exactly fill him with a great sense of ease to see the lengths that she was willing to go to. 

Her partner was regularly the only thing that could get Yang to come back to the house instead of just staying out all night for answers. Blake played the good cop to Yang’s bad cop. 

Qrow couldn’t confirm, but he was pretty sure that the Mistral police had arrested the heads of more crime rings in the last month than they had in their entire careers. They just let Yang go in, get what information she could out of the poor guys, and then waltzed in to clean up after her.

Where Yang was bright and brash and was leaving a trail of destruction in her wake, Blake was much more subtle and subdued. She had been in contact with some of her old friends from the White Fang. With her father back in control, things had gone much more smoothly than they could have. 

They’d been able to coordinate searches at night, White Fang members taking up the search when it got too dark for the human police to see. Blake’s friend Ilia headed up most of these searches. While she didn’t really know or care about the kid, she seemed to be doing this to make up for the disaster on Menagerie. 

Qrow didn’t think there was anything to make up for, but whatever floated her boat.

Their monkey friend, meanwhile, had been put on border watch with that blue haired idiot. Qrow wasn’t sure how reliable they would be, but the kids, and mostly Blake, assured him that they would take this completely seriously. Or Sun would at least.

Ruby’s emotions were nothing to the remaining members of Jaune’s team. Nora and Ren were self destructing. He’d had to go out himself several times to get them to come back to base, because they’d just decided to keep searching until they dropped right there in the street.

He was sure that the only thing keeping them functional was the one kid’s Semblance masking the worst of their emotions.

The guy, Ren, was shutting down. Shutting everyone except his partner out, and barely reacting to anything in the world around him. Completely tunnel visioned. She was different. Overly emotional, reacting too much somehow, but equally tunnel visioned.

The bandit tribes of Anima had given them a picture of how cruel people could be to each other. Neither of them were saying anything about it, but he could tell that they were trying their hardest to not focus on what Jaune might be going through right now. They could deal with that when they found him. If they found him.

They were just kids, and they’d already lost so much. Qrow knew what it was like to lose a teammate. The loss of Summer stung at his heart every day, she’d been like the sister he wished he had. 

They knew something similar, with the Nikos girl. He still held guilt in his heart for his part in her death. 

But Jaune going missing, too. And so soon after Nikos died. 

It would’ve been like losing Tai within a year of Summer. He couldn’t imagine it, and he’d been a full adult, a full Huntsman when they lost Summer. Ren and Nora were just kids, who should still be in school and not be having to worry about their brother getting tortured for a war that they should, by all rights, have nothing to do with. 

Qrow was the last person you needed to tell that life wasn’t fair. But for once, he felt close to saying it himself. 

Oscar was not allowed to go out searching. He stuck close to Qrow, carrying the Relic and offering any comments or ideas that Oz had. There weren’t many, but it was something at least. Oscar didn’t seem to know what to do with himself. 

Qrow couldn’t blame him,  _ he  _ barely knew what he was doing.

He was coordinating between a million different agencies: Atlas, Mistral, the White Fang, even Vale on the very rare occasion when they got word from them. They were all searching for something,  _ anything _ that might give them a clue as to where the kid might be stashed. But so far, nothing.

The kid was supposed to be his responsibility. It wasn’t a real school-sanctioned trip like he’d told Jaune’s family, but still. He was supposed to be looking out for these kids. They were idiots, and they irritated the hell out of him, but dammit they were  _ his _ kids.

The remaining kids were too young to have to deal with wondering if their friend was dying or already dying. And if he was alive, that he was probably going through an unimaginable ordeal. Qrow didn’t have the heart to tell them that the outlook was probably worse than even that.

Belladonna always stressed to Ilia and the other Faunus to get medical attention immediately if they found the kid. Qrow had to assume that her days in the White Fang had given more than a passing awareness of what Jaune might be going through. At least more than her other friends.

He, at least, certainly knew more than he was telling them. He’d dealt with this group before, and he’d seen how they left their abductees when they were done with them. There was never very much left to find, and they were never brought back alive.

Qrow hadn’t meant to let this happen. After Summer and his sister, and with his Semblance, it had always been easier to not care about anyone. It hurt less when something terrible happened, but the kid had somehow wormed his way in. He cared about the kid, in a gruff, emotionally-distant kind of way.

Jaune just had that quality about him.

It was obvious that Ruby and Yang adored him, loved him like the brother they’d never had. Ice Queen Jr. was willing to push aside her own pride if it meant getting the kid back, something he’d gathered was basically unheard of. Belladonna had gone immediately to the White Fang for information, risking the tenuous alliance that she’d forged between the group and the Mistralians.

Ren and Nora seemed off-balanced without Jaune there. Without the kid here to complete their little trio, they constantly seemed  _ wrong _ somehow. Guess he’d become used to seeing the taller blonde kid attached to the hip of one or both of them. 

Seeing just the two of them without the other always made him acutely aware that something was wrong, more than anything else did.

He didn’t know what it was about the kid, but people just  _ liked  _ him. And they all seemed completely confident that Jaune wouldn’t say anything, no matter what. Every single one of them agreed on that at least: Jaune Arc would never answer their questions.

Qrow wasn’t so sure. Nobody had come back alive once this group decided to take them, and new information would appear in the channels shortly after the next body would be found. So they always broke them. Every single abductee broke, and gave the group new information to sell.

But if the kids were sure of anything, it was this. Qrow couldn’t help wondering what the kid had done to inspire that level of confidence in his friends.

He could only hope they were wrong. It would be easier on Jaune if he gave in to the group’s demands. They might grant him a quick death.


	7. Left For Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’d always hated being the damsel in distress needing to be rescued, but he thought he’d give his friends a pass if it meant they hadn’t given up on him.

His wrists were chained behind his back, keeping Jaune shackled to the wall. It wasn’t exactly cold in the room where he was kept, but it definitely wasn’t warm. By no definition was this room warm. It might even be cold, but he couldn’t really tell. He’d become far too used to this room

There was no way out, not even a crack in the walls bigger than a finger. It was small, and dark, and somehow airless. And it was his new home. Possibly his last home. In the days, weeks,  _ months _ that he’d been here he’d explored every inch of this room. 

Maybe it had only been a few weeks. Maybe it had only been a few days. He had no reference point for how much time had passed, and with how much he’d been blacking out recently, trying to keep track of days had immediately flown out the window.

Maybe his friends were even still looking for him.

It had been a while since his captors had come to get him. Jaune only left this cell when it was time to get questioned about Ruby, or Ozpin, or the Relics or whatever the hell else they wanted to ask him. Sometimes they asked him about his family. Sometimes they didn’t even ask anything.

Those days were the worst. He never answered their questions anyways, no matter how much they made his insides sing, but on the days when there were no questions asked...they always seemed to care less about making sure he survived. 

They’d somehow found a way to keep his Aura from replenishing as much as it should. Jaune didn’t know how that was possible, but he’d stopped questioning somewhere along the way. Maybe it was the injections, or the shock treatment, but sometimes he felt like his brain wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders.

He saw his friends sometimes. They were hallucinations, he knew that, because he’d written off the real thing ever showing up here. For  _ him _ of all people.

The first time it had happened, it had only been their voices, but that had been enough to set his heart racing with anxiety, and panic, and maybe...maybe something approximating hope.

“Jaune!”

He sat up, his head spinning with the sudden move, and his injuries screaming in protest. “Weiss?”

“Jaune!”

Standing, Jaune wavered on his feet. “Ren! Where are you?” He flinched at how cold the stone felt under his bare feet.

“Jaune!”

Ruby sounded so scared, like she was crying. Jaune whirled in confused circles, the chain clinking and clanking behind him, but he couldn’t tell where the voices were coming from. They seemed to manifest from the churning shifting darkness that surrounded him.

“Jaune!”

Choking back a sob of frustration, Jaune stepped forward into the inky darkness, chasing Nora’s voice as far as his restraints would let him. “Don’t worry, I’m coming guys!” he called, his voice rough from screaming and crying. He had to find them, he had to. Where were they? He could hear them calling, begging for him to help.

“It hurts!”

“We need you!”

“I can’t get out!”

“Why aren’t you helping?”

“Why did you leave us?”

Jaune’s breath came in wet gulps as he shook his head in denial. He hadn’t left them, not on purpose anyways. And he was trying, but not hard enough, because they needed him and he was stuck in this place and he was failing them again. And he wasn’t allowed to fail them, he’d made that promise early on, that he’d make sure they all got out. That he’d be the one to take the fall for them.

He wasn’t answering the questions, he swore that he wouldn’t. But that wasn’t enough was it? Everything he did...it was never enough.

“I’m sorry, okay?! I won’t tell them anything, I swear, I won’t,  _ please!”  _ he cried, crumpling to the ground and clutching the hair on the sides of his head. They needed him, why wasn’t he helping? He couldn’t fail his family, not again.

Jaune was still sobbing through words under his breath when he realized that nobody was responding this time.

A hallucination. He’d been hallucinating them.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t happening though, It didn’t mean they were safe.

They had to be safe though. They had to, or Jaune was doing this for nothing. Or the pain was for  _ nothing  _ at all. His captors would have stopped asking him questions if they’d been caught. So they had to be safe, he was sure of it. Right.

But what if they weren’t?

When Jaune reached up to brush the grime off his face, he realized his cheeks were wet with tears.

Once they joined him, his friends wouldn’t leave him alone. It didn’t take long before he forgot that they weren’t really there with him.

When the burns on his back were healing slower than they should, Weiss was there chastising him for getting into this mess and icing the burns. In the darkness he could swear he could hear Blake reading to him under her breath, and could swear he could see her ears flicking to hear the guards approaching. When they turned the temperature down in his room, and his teeth chattered together and his breath fogged in the air, Yang was a furnace of flame to keep him warm. He begged for them to actually be there.

But nobody came.

Cuts across his torso got infected, and in the haze of fever Ruby was there brushing his hacked-short hair off his forehead. Shock treatment always had Nora by his side, trying to siphon off the electricity with her Semblance. Injections of chemicals sent waves of fire licking along his veins, and Ren extended his Aura to calm the pain in his body and in his mind. Jaune sobbed, crying for them to rescue him from this agony.

But nobody came.

Pyrrha was there sometimes, too. Even though he knew that was impossible. Because she was gone. Because he had failed her, and she had  _ died _ , he  _ knew  _ that. But that didn’t stop her from showing up.

There were others too. Oscar, and Qrow, and Sun, and his mother, and Saphron, and Penny, and Neptune, and his father, and-

The names went on and on. The pain never stopped. Pain was Jaune’s constant companion, his only companion. He sometimes considered giving into their requests. Nobody was coming after all, no matter how many times he begged, and cried, and screamed for them to find him.

Nobody ever came.

He hated himself sometimes for wishing them there. Because if they were there with him, then he would’ve failed. It would’ve been his fault they were there. And he wouldn’t wish this on any one of them. If one of them had to go through this torment, Jaune would rather it was him. 

Would rather it be him than any of the others.

He was losing the battle. He could tell. Losing track of time was the first thing to go. Then he’d lost control of when he was allowed to eat, when he was allowed to sleep. He found days when he struggled to remember their names, when he struggled to remember  _ his _ name. There were even days when he didn’t pass out from the pain, and he went giggling back to his cell.

Those days scared him when he realized what had happened. Because they were signs that he was really losing the battle. Losing himself, losing  _ them _ . It was a detached sort of fear though.

Like he could feel the fear, but it was behind a wall. Or just out of sight. And he could feel the pain, but it was happening to someone else. Not to him.

But maybe that was really winning. Because if he forgot them, then there was no way for him to give them up. They couldn’t get information from Jaune about his friends if Jaune couldn’t remember his friends. 

Nobody did end up coming to get him that day. Jaune just sat in his cell, curled on his side in a vain attempt to quell the rumbling in his stomach, and waited for his exhausted body to fall asleep. Jaune longed for the day when his battered body would give up and he’d just never wake up. Maybe then he’d finally escape, but he doubted he’d be free even then.

Eventually sleep did come, and it was definitely more of a relief than any painkillers could be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might be the last chapter for a little while. I have more planned for this story, the next chapter might just take me a little while to actually write.


	8. Ray Of Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I saw a little ray of light come through, the tiniest of sparks came into view.

Finally. After months.  _ Maybe _ they had news.

It might not be great news, but with all other trails having long gone terribly dry, any news was good. 

A man matching one of the bare descriptions Qrow had been able to give had been spotted by students going into practice for their school’s talent show somewhere on one of the middling levels.

They’d called the hotline, so of course by the time anyone official got there, the man they’d seen was long gone. But with them seeing the man, and cross-referencing with Qrow to confirm their suspicions, they then had a much more accurate image to go off of. 

And a confirmed sighting of one of the kidnappers was the best lead they’d had since they found Jaune’s Scroll all those weeks ago. Especially since the two had happened so close together.

They only had hope that Jaune was still alive because they hadn’t found his body yet. Qrow still couldn’t bring himself to tell the barely hopeful kids that this group’s captives rarely lasted much longer than this.

For the first time in weeks, the kids weren’t drifting listlessly around the house. While the searches had never really stopped, Qrow didn’t think he could make them stop if he tried, they now had new energy behind them.

Ruby was less dazed and infinitely more focused. Weiss had even succeeded in getting her to sleep without nightmares nearly every night this week. Yang, while still pissed enough to spit fire, was slowly opening back to joking, if only half-heartedly. 

Blake let him know two days after the man was spotted that her friends in the White Fang were watching the area around the clock on the off chance that they’d spot the man again.

The real difference could be seen in Ren and Nora. A difference in that they were  _ functioning _ again, as opposed to the emotionless broken-down zombies they’d been with no news.

Qrow was glad for the news, even if it was an extreme long shot. Those kids needed something to cling to. Even if it wasn’t much of anything.

And then, after another week of stakeouts and sleepless nights and them starting to think that it was nothing and they’d really never see their friend again, it happened. The man showed up again.

Short, whippet-thin, cropped blond hair, and a scar tracing long up one side of his face.

Gelb McAvoy. Wanted for two counts of robbery homicide, suspected on countless more, and reportedly involved more than a dozen counts of kidnapping and torture of potential informants.

Qrow knew that scar. He’d been friends, well temporary colleagues more like, with the Huntsman who’d given the man that scar.

They’d found the man’s body a week later. Barely recognizable enough for a positive identification. Nasty business.

But now they had an actual tangible lead to find the kid. After months of searching, and waiting, and gradually losing hope. They had a lead.

A lead that led them, after too many days tracking the man’s comings and going around the school, to narrow down the location of the base of operations of the gang to almost within the school grounds itself. 

Qrow had a long angry shouting match with the head of the Mistral police over that one.

A school?! Yeah fine, it wasn’t in the school, it was in some abandoned factory the Schnee Dust Company had outsourced to a million years ago. But still. What the hell.

It was bad enough that one kid had been kidnapped, but these maniacs were within spitting distance of a horde more.

Still fuming, Qrow relayed the information to the kids in the once homely living room. They were all getting sick and god damn tired of this house, but what could they do? It wasn’t like they could leave the area, that would be admitting defeat.

Weiss was the only one willing to admit that maybe they were still in the same house because if Jaune escaped… then he would be able to find them.

No, that definitely wasn’t it. Definitely. Nope. Not at all.

But when they heard the news, the house felt like the first wind of spring had swept through it. The sparks returned to their eyes, tentative and beaten down, but it was there.

They had a location. After months. The longest months of their lives. They had a location.

“So, me and the Mistral Police and any officials I can round up are gonna come up with a plan of attack,” Qrow finished, shoving his hands in his pockets. 

“Hopefully a plan that actually involves some attack, if I can get those damn pencil pushers to commit to anything,” the man grumbled, glaring at the door behind him as if it had done something to upset him.

“We’re gonna bring him home. Right, Uncle Qrow?” Ruby asked, the tiniest bit of doubt creeping into her voice.

Qrow hesitated, gazing around at the assembled teens. Beaten down and overworked and stressed and breaking apart into tiny unfixable pieces. All too young to be dealing with this. 

It was a sight that felt too familiar to him. It felt like looking in a mirror, or looking at himself when he was their age. Life wasn’t fair, but dammit sometimes it should be.

He ruffled her hair, and managed a warmer smirk than he’d been able to muster for months. “Sure thing, kiddo.” She swelled with relief, the ghost of a smile lighting up her silver eyes.

Through his bangs, he saw the other kids react similarly. What in hell had he done to earn these damn kid’s trust?

“Hey, it might take me a long time to get them to do anything,” Qrow said, making clear and deliberate eye contact with each of them in turn. “A long  _ long  _ time,” he said significantly, holding Ruby’s gaze for a second longer than the others.

Her eyes widened imperceptibly, and a small shocked expression passed over her face, but he turned away. “They’ll be pretty occupied talking with me for a  _ long time _ ,” he made sure to put more emphasis on the words, “so there won’t be anyone around to keep you kids company.”

Qrow stopped in the doorway and glanced back at the group. Yang was grinning wide and fierce, and it made him quirk his lips into the approximation of a smile. “But you didn’t hear that from me, of course.”

And then he left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God this took me way to long to write, damn you writers block. And it's much shorter than it should be, but at long last I've gotten over this hump and we can FINALLY continue. I'm so freaking sorry for the stupidly long wait, y'all


	9. Friend Indeed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This may well be the worst plan in a recent history of very bad plans. But it’s the only one they have.

“So come on guys, what’s the game plan?”

Weiss glanced sharply at Yang. “Game plan?” Nora perked up. “What d’you mean by game plan?”

“You heard Qrow, he’s on board with us doing it. We’re going and bustin’ him out of wherever he is, aren’t we? ” She says this slowly, like the others were dumb for not realizing this sooner.

“Hell yeah we are!” Nora exclaimed, pumping her fist in the air and sounding more alive than she had in months.

“Oh can we? We’ve gotta get him back!” Oscar said, eyes darting around at the group.

Weiss sighed and rolled her eyes. “He’s going to come back, but I just don’t think we should be the ones to go find him.” 

The words had barely left her lips before Nora was shouting protests. Blake shushed her with a wave, casting a wary glance at the door Qrow had just exited in case he heard the yells and came looking. 

Weiss held up a hand and waited for the shouting to die down. “Jaune would hate it if one of us got hurt on his account,” she said, glancing at Oscar who was still seeming panicked. The boy’s eyes were wide with hope, but at her clear gaze they dropped to look away. Oscar nodded silently.

“So!” Nora clapped her hands together suddenly and everyone jumped. Well, everyone except Ren, none of Nora’s antics seemed to phase him. “So, that’s two against,” she indicated Oscar and Weiss, who crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.

Blake raised her hand reluctantly, not making eye contact with her partner. “I’ll come along if we all decide on going but… I agree with Weiss on this one.”

The ginger rolled her eyes, but amended her statement. “ _ Three _ against. And two for.” She indicated Yang and herself. “Renny, you’re in for a rescue mission right?”

Said teen nodded from his spot in the doorway. “Of course,” he murmured, blowing his hair out of his eyes. He frowned when it fell stubbornly back into place. “Jaune needs to come home.”

“Awesome! That’s three for!’ She stood proudly, and jabbed a finger in Weiss’s face. “We’re. Tied.”

The heiress pinched between her eyebrows in irritation. “This isn’t a vote- this isn’t a competition, Nora! How is this even a debate- No,” she cut herself off with a glare at Yang, who had instigated this in the first place. “We’ve got to leave this up to the professionals, this is what they’re for.”

Nora spluttered indignantly and drew herself up to her full height to attempt to get in Weiss’s face. Given that Weiss had a good couple inches on her, she mostly just looked like she was swelling up like a balloon. Ren looked like he was preparing himself to hold Nora back if his partner tried to take a swing at her.

“Yang and Nora are right, Weiss,” said Ruby quietly from where she’d been sitting in silence.

All movement in the room stopped. Yang slowly turned to her sister in amazement. “What did you say? Are you actually agreeing with me over Weiss?!” She sounded delighted.

“We need to go find him, and-” her voice was shaking, but there was a cold steel in it that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago. “-and we need to bring him home.”

“Ruby,” Weiss sighed exasperatedly, “we can’t just go gallivanting off on some rescue mission.” She sounded desperate now, bordering on the edge of hysterics. “You have to understand this is a terrible idea, right?”

Ruby just rolled her eyes and turned to the door. Weiss went to grab her arm and stop him, but her partner batted her away before rounding on her with too-bright fire glinting in her eyes. “Weiss, cut it out. We’re going to go get him and that’s final.”

“But what if you guys get hurt?! Or kidnapped too like-” Oscar fretted, waving his arms in the air to emphasize his words.

“Then we get hurt,” she said simply, glancing down at the lamp at his side before returning her gaze to Weiss. “You know he would do the same for us,” she argued, voice softening a bit. “And if we’re any kind of friends then we should be out there  _ right now _ looking for him.” 

“Okay.” Ruby’s head shot up, eyes full of hope. Behind her Yang was pumping her fist in silent victory, and Nora was comforting Oscar, who still looked woebegone. Weiss held up one finger to halt anything her partner might say. “You all can go, on one condition.”

“Anything,” she agreed immediately, clearly relieved she wasn’t trying to talk them out of going.

“You have to take me with you.” She cracked a wry smile at Ruby’s surprised and delighted expression. “Someone has to make sure you all come back alive,” she said by way of an explanation. Weiss said it casually, but all of them knew her well enough to know how worried she was.

Yang thumped Blake on the back, almost knocking her to the ground. “That’s that, mom said it’s okay so let’s get this show on the fucking road!”

“Now I enjoy rushing in and kicking ass as much as the next guy,” Blake butted in, adjusting her jacket from where it’d been knocked askew, “And I will gladly come along if that’s the decision we’ve all come to. But I,” she hesitated, looking at the youngest of their number, “I think Oscar should stay behind.”

The boy started to protest, but Ren signalling that he wanted to speak effectively stopped him in his path. “I think that it is a good idea for Oscar to remain behind,” he said. 

“You are Ozpin’s host after all,” he reasoned, moving from the doorway to rejoin the group, “And with only recently unlocking your Aura, you are more likely to get hurt in the upcoming fight than the rest of us.” Nora’s gaze softened, and she nodded in agreement.

“I agree that we shouldn’t all go along,” Weiss agreed.

“There’s a shocker,” Yang muttered to Ruby, who smirked.

“However, I also think it might be optimal if we did not bring our weapons along with us,” Ren posited cautiously, already raising his hands to halt the incoming flow of protests. Mostly from Ruby, who seemed loath to leave her precious scythe behind.

“No way! I can’t fight hand-to-hand, you heard Oz-” Ruby protested loudly, waving her arms at Oscar, who looked like he wanted nothing more than to  _ not _ be included in this particular argument.

“No Ruby, Ren is right! This is supposed to be a stealth mission!” Weiss hissed, flapping a hand at the closed door that the Mistrali police were undoubtedly standing behind. “And you want to go charging in there guns literally ablazing?”

“We would be much more subtle if such things were left behind,” Blake agreed, casting a side-long look at Yang.

“I- But-” Ruby spluttered, exasperated. “Yang please??”

“Sorry Rube,” Yang shrugged, returning her gauntlet to its bracelet form. “Sneaky mode requires less giant bright red scythe.”

“You’re only saying that because you can already fight close up!”

Oscar was still looking rather put-out at being denied permission to come along. Nora crouched down and sat on her heels to look him in the eyes. Seeing she was taking care of it, Ren went and waylaid Ruby, who was drifting towards the exits again. 

“Hey,” Nora said to bring Oscar’s attention back to her. “Hey there little cute boy Oz,” she said in a rare show of gentleness when he finally brought his eyes to meet hers. “Do you  _ really _ want to come along?”

“I really really do! I came along to the Haven when that all happened so...” He trailed off, fingers tapping nervously on the lamp at his belt “I don’t want anyone to get hurt again, o-okay?” Oscar admitted, holding his arms to himself a little tighter than he would normally have done.

Nora’s eyes widened an imperceptible amount, and she abruptly lurched forward and drew the smaller teen into a hug. The boy tensed for a moment, but only a moment. He dug his fingers into the back of her jacket shirt and buried his face into her shoulder. 

She sunk down to her knees and tried to ignore the tears coming to her eyes as well. Sometimes she forgot how much younger he was than the rest of them. “We’re gonna get him back, Oscar,” she murmured, and he nodded mutely into his shoulder. 

“And he’s-” her voice hitched, thinking of Beacon and Penny and  _ god _ of  _ Pyrrha _ , “-and he’s gonna be fine.” She felt him nod, and Nora squeezed him tight for a moment before releasing him. Oscar drew back, looking marginally better.

“I think we’ve dilly-dallied for long enough,” Weiss spoke up. Yang held out a hand to yank Nora to her feet, already snickering at the heiress’s use of “dilly-dally.”

“Oscar, you’ll stay behind,” Ruby reminded, “You’ve got the whole Ozpin thing, and the lamp, and… well Uncle Qrow will probably need some help stalling the authorities,” she admitted, looking a little sheepish.

“You want me to keep them from thinking anything is wrong?” Oscar asked, looking doubtful. He didn’t know if he had a single deceitful bone in his entire body.

“Do whatever you have to.”

“Think me in Port’s history class,” Yang butted in, a cheshire grin splitting her face.

“That might be a bit much,” Blake said, raising an eyebrow.

Nobody even batted an eye when Weiss hissed. “He doesn’t know who that is you  _ dolt! _ ” 

“But...that is the general idea.,” Ruby agreed, “No one can suspect where we’ve gone because they’ll just try to drag us back here. And…” 

She hesitated, mulling something over. “And if we’re not back in half an hour-?” she glanced at Ren, “Is it far?” He shook his head, already examining the fastest path to the location on his Scroll. “If we’re not back in about a half an hour, call my Uncle.”

Oscar drew himself up and nodded. In any other situation the gravely serious expression darkening his freckled face would have made Nora poke fun, but it was sadly appropriate at the moment. 

“I’ll go and talk to them now, to make sure that they’re occupied when you guys leave.” Oscar said, taking the cane from his back and holding it in one hand. His gaze spaced out for a moment, but no flash of gold occurred. “Oz… says good luck,” he said finally with a sad smile

Then he left the living room to occupy the police standing guard outside their rooms. The volume swelled for a moment as the sounds of people just living their lives filled the empty house, but with a very final sounding  _ click _ as the doors closed, it was silent again.

The remaining six teens all looked at each other. “There’s no turning back now,” Blake said grimly.

“Well, I mean of course there is,” Weiss pointed out. “But we’re not!” she exclaimed quickly at Nora’s sharp glare. “Come on, I’m not backing out! I said I’d come, and I will.” She snapped, crossing her arms in a huff and returning Nora’s glare.

Ruby rolled her eyes fondly and zipped past everyone to reach the exterior courtyard that Jaune had so often used for late-night training. If all went well, hopefully he’d be able to again “Come on, guys.” As she opened the door she said over her shoulder, “Let’s rescue us a noodle.”

“Hell yeah sis, let’s do this!” Yang cheered. Ruby grinned at her and stepped into the night air. As quickly as they all could manage with most of their usual methods of “flight” being gunfire powered, they all took to the roofs.

There was still water on the ground from the previous night’s storm. It was cold out. Much colder than it had been for the past few days. The kind of cold that sent wind blowing down the nearly empty streets of Mistral. 

That wind that stole away your breath and sent the friends zooming through the starlit sky leaving trails of steam from frozen breath. Red and gold leaves blew in from the woods beyond the now-empty Academy and whisked into the already cold-nipped faces of the unlikely group of would-be rescuers.

Not a cloud in sight, the shattered moon cast cool light across the multilayered city. Qrow Branwen heard a noise and glanced up just in time to see six teens zoom overhead.

A shower of rose petals drifted down to him, before dissipating as if they’d never been at all.

He grinned. Maybe something good would come from tonight after all.


	10. Not Your Fault

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Into the belly of the beast. The calm before the storm is always the darkest time

Down through the layers of Mistral, past the markets and the bourgeois and into the middling layers where the more common city-folk lived. The group landed as quietly as they could. Ren and Blake, on the balls of their feet. Yang and Nora in fighting stances, fingers curling to grip weapons they wouldn’t find. Weiss and Ruby, somewhere in between the two.

Then, with the sun setting and the higher levels casting long shadows on the streets, the group set out on foot towards their destination.

Ruby zoomed up to walk level with Ren, who was navigating by the soft back-lit map on his Scroll. She was trying not to think about how Jaune had been missing for nearly three months. She must not have been hiding it very well though, because Yang spoke up. “Calm down, sis, he’ll be fine.” 

They followed Ren down the dimly lit streets in silence for a few moments. None of them asked him where he was leading them, and he was unlikely to respond even if they asked. “He’s already not fine,” Ruby almost whispered, refusing to make eye contact with any of them. 

Yang had no response to this for once, and so she fell silent. Now that they were outside the refuge of the house it seemed to settle on them for the first time what exactly they had gotten themselves into.

The lights from the school lit up the dark streets, and the group trooped across the asphalt of the parking lot. Cars were parked here and there, and the rumble of a crowd issued from the open doors. The sign by the road advertised that the school’s talent show was tonight.

“Blake?” Weiss spoke up from behind in an effort to break the silence. Said girl nodded curtly in acknowledgment but remained silent. “I know it’s probably a touchy subject but… did the White Fang ever...” she hesitated, hunting for the right words, unable to ask when she needed an answer to. 

Luckily, Blake seemed to know what she couldn’t bring herself to say. “Yes, they did,” she said, a little too sharply to be entirely casual, stepping off the parking lot onto the sparse grass that separated the sports fields from the asphalt. Her sharp response cut off any reply that Weiss would have had.

Nora and Yang glanced at each other in askance. Why weren’t they leaving the school grounds? That would mean that Jaune’s kidnappers were teachers or something. Ren didn’t seem to think anything was up, but he was in tunnel-vision-focus mode. 

He was also the only one who actually knew where they were going, but that was probably unrelated.

“I never took part in any of the… political kidnappings,” the Faunus continued, ears flicking back and forth in the night air. “But I knew they happened.” Shame coated her face like a mask, keeping her from meeting any of their eyes

Ren seemed to have finally come back to reality. He stopped and stared at the looming factory in the distance as Nora said, “Wait…are you telling me that you’ve known the whole time what could be happening to Jaune?!” She gestured between the six of them incredulously. “And you didn’t tell us?!” 

Blake almost looked surprised. “Of course I didn’t! It’s  _ horrible _ , I wouldn’t want you to have to envision that happening to him, the way that I do!” Blake couldn’t repress a shudder of disgust, her ears going flat against her head. “I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, let alone some of my closest friends.”

Ruby had the presence of mind to at least sort of look ashamed, but Nora almost seemed to get more angry. Ren was still gazing off towards the athletics shed, his brow creased in something approaching confusion. 

“Anyway,” Weiss interjected, in an obvious attempt to head off the potential argument. “We’re almost there, so if we want to make a ‘game plan,’” she said mockingly, making quotes in the air with her fingers, “we should do it here.”

“Right,” Yang muttered with a wolf-like grin, casting about as if looking for something before she stormed off towards a pile of tires lying next to the fenceline. They were probably normally used by the school's sports team for who knew what, but they looked like they hadn’t been moved in at least a month. 

Yang seemed intent on finding something hidden in the depths of the pile, or maybe she was just venting her frustration with the situation on the poor things, but who were they to begrudge her if she wanted to rummage in a heap of tires? 

Her huffy movement brought Ren’s gaze to her for a second, but it soon returned to the distant monolith of a factory. Nora noticed this distraction and stepped up to join him by the fence.

His eyes were scanning the area around the abandoned, but relatively innocent looking building. “It’s okay to be nervous you know,” she murmured to him so the others couldn’t hear. Ren nodded, not really listening. His eyes focused on a particular spot of darkness just outside the shed. Was there someone standing there, or was his worry-addled mind just playing tricks on him? 

“Whatcha lookin’ at anyway?” Nora questioned, automatically holding a hand over her eyes to block out the sun. Seeing how it had set hours ago, this was largely unnecessary.

“I’m not actually sure,” he admitted. “I just keep thinking that I can hear something.” He gazed keenly into the distance and looked as if he would quite like the wind to blow his hair dramatically at that point, but the wind was busy fooling around with some leaves a little way off.

A clatter from the tires and a quiet cheer of triumph indicated that Yang had found her prize. Ruby’s whispered shout of, “Yang, what the heck is that?!” had Weiss preparing to be exasperated before she even turned around.

“Well I figured if we’re going to kick some ass,” she smacked her new-found lead pipe into her palm proudly, “I should break into my stash.” Weiss couldn’t even be surprised anymore, this was the norm for Yang.

“You got any for the rest of us, or just you?” Ruby asked eagerly, though apprehensively.

“Nah, just me,” she grinned, bearing an uncanny resemblance to a great white shark. “Stashed it there last me and Blakey were on stake-out duty.”

“Wait, that’s why you were so okay with leaving your gauntlet behind!” Ruby fumed.

“Maybe so.” She leant her pipe against her leg and stashed her sunglasses in a pocket of her pants. “You should probably take those out, momma bird,” she said, indicating Weiss’s earrings, “unless you want them getting ripped the fuck out.” 

Weiss hesitated before following Yang’s advice and removing her bangles. After all, the brawler was their resident expert on getting into actual close-up fights.  _ ‘At least on purpose,’  _ she winced, thinking of Jaune.

“So are we going’?” Ruby asked the group at large. “Because I don’t know about you guys, but I am freezing over here.” The wind kept sending chills up her arms and whipped her cape up into a frenzy behind her. Sure, removing jewelry and accessories as Yang suggested was all well and good, but she would be stone dead before her hood left her back.

She was regretting not bringing a coat, though.

“Yeah,” Yang grinned, swinging her pipe back into her palm with a satisfying  _ smack _ , “Where are we goin’, Ren _? _ ”

“That abandoned factory just across the field is our destination,” Ren said, still not taking his eyes off the building itself

“Abandoned factory,  _ what _ abandoned-” Weiss started, wheeling around, but she stopped dead as soon as she completed her turn. For as soon as she laid eyes on the dilapidated walls, she immediately zeroed in her gaze on the unmistakable logo of the Schnee Dust Company on the outside.

Her  _ family’s  _ logo.

Weiss couldn’t look at any of them. She felt like all the air had just been punched out of her stomach. How could she not have known?

‘ _ The same way you didn’t know your own friend was spiraling into depression,’  _ a silkily sly little voice hissed in the back of her mind, ‘ _ Because you didn’t care, did you?’ _ Weiss had no argument, but she was saved the trouble of thinking of one when an unmistakable noise rent the air.

Someone was  _ screaming _ , screaming like their heart had just been ripped out of their chest in front of them. All five of their heads snapped around to stare in the direction of the noise. Even Ren’s unshakable expression wasn’t seeming as secured as it normally was. The scream petered off just as suddenly as it began, but the echoes wouldn’t be leaving their ears anytime soon.

“Do you think that was…?” Ruby croaked. Her eyes were wide and her hands were shaking.

“Was that…?” Yang asked, glancing at Ren for confirmation.

Nora had no doubts in her mind, there was no question who it had been. As soon as she recovered from her shock, she was already sprinting towards the factory, caution thrown to the wind. More than ever she feared what she would find inside.

She didn’t even notice as Ren fell into step with her on one side, and Ruby on the other. She didn’t notice Yang flipping her pipe into her hand as she ran, or Weiss wiping tears from her eyes. She certainly didn’t notice the sounds of casual conversation and even laughter issuing from the ajar door of the building. 

No, she didn’t notice any of that. Her mind was only focused on one thing: the barely audible muttering and sobbing coming from somewhere deep in the bowels of the cinderblock building.

“Jaune.”

The six of them took up positions flanking the only door. Ren, Nora, and Ruby on one side, Weiss, Blake, and Yang on the other. Ruby pointed at the door and held up her hand, indicating how many seconds until they entered. They all nodded, even Nora. The gravity of the situation seemed to be settling on them like a thick fog.

She started counting down.

“Five, four, three…” she mouthed along with his countdown, and they shuffled into fighting stances. Or as close as they could get to fighting stances without their usual armaments. “...two, one!”

“Okay, let’s do this,” Nora muttered, and then she charged in screaming, “YIPPEE KI YAY MOTHERFUCKERS!!” Apparently she couldn’t ever take anything one hundred percent seriously, even with Jaune’s life potentially on the line. But they had to admire her gusto.

“Oh shit she just ran in,” Weiss muttered, looking aghast that after all that planning Nora just  _ ran inside _ . 

Yang just grinned her wolf-toothed smile. “Well come one shit heads, let’s get in there!” And with that quip barked over her shoulder, she burst through the door with a triumphant yell of, “WHAT’S UP FUCKERS?!” 

The other four were close on her heels, and Ren felt his spirits lighten a little bit at the sight of Yang whacking some unnamed hulking man upside the head with a lead pipe.

But that wasn’t what he was here for. Not yet at least.


	11. Broken Toy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> However it began, for him it was ending here. In blood, and darkness, and a life unmade

Today was a no questions day. There was no question- ha ha -about it. The fact that Commando was going all out and not restraining himself at all was evidence enough. At least there were no extra toys involved today, just plain old ordinary fists.

He was almost relieved. Almost.

Jaune’s head snapped to one side and he fell to the ground as Commando’s fist impacted the side of his head. His eyes found a reflection of his own face in a pool of water and locked onto them. Somehow the fact that he looked desperate and desolate even to himself made it easier. It was confirmation that this was not the way a normal course of life should go.

It’s been a while since he’s seen himself. Jaune wondered who that stranger staring back at him with his eyes was.

Commando, who still had that too-pleased grin plastered on his face, grabbed him by the neck and held him up by it as he landed hit after hit on his already bruised body. Jaune knew he should wish for his friends to find him or his tormentor to suddenly suffer a massive heart attack, but all he found the strength to wish for was that his team was there so someone could dispute the words coming out of Commando’s mouth. 

To tell him that he was good, that he was smart, and he was not useless, and he was not broken, and there were people out there who loved him.

Which was very selfish, for if he wished for his friends to find him then they would be in danger, too. But as Commando barked the hot awful words in his ears, he couldn’t remember a time when they hadn’t been true.

There was blood running down his back and face, and there was a warmth in his chest that he knew from hard won experience meant that his ribs were cracked if not broken. However, Jaune’s mind had gone somewhere else. There was no reasoning with Commando especially when he was speaking the truth. 

There was no reason he shouldn't let his mind wander away from the situation. Besides, he couldn’t seem to focus on anything past the cloud of pain that seemed to be enveloping everything within a three foot radius.

Commando released his neck and Jaune dropped with a gasp to the floor. Even with his hands no longer cuffed, he didn’t think he had it in him to push himself off the sodden ground. They’d been doing this more and more often, leaving him uncuffed even when out of his cell.

It was like they knew that he wasn’t going to try fighting back.

He tried for just a second to push himself up into a...well anything was better than just laying on the floor, but he’d barely gotten his arms under him when Commando kicked him in his chest. This promptly canceled any plans he’d had as his chest decided that numbness was for dorks, white hot pain was where the cool kids were at.

Jaune swore he could  _ feel _ his ribs breaking in half.

“Don’t even know why I bothered to bring you here, Jauney,” Commando said casually. 

Jaune’s mind echoed his own name back at him:  _ Jauney, Jauney, Jauney… _ It was his name, but twisted somehow. Corrupted, like a reflection in a fun-house mirror. It made him feel sick to his stomach, his subconscious reminding him of all the times his name had been coupled with immense pain. 

Jauney was a nickname that he used to reserve the right to say for only his family and his team, especially after Cardin, but now it only meant pain was soon to come.

Also, how was Commando so damn casual about all of this? It was as if kidnapping a kid, dragging him to a remote location, and proceeding to beat the shit out of him was something he did on a regular basis. 

One of Commando’s lackeys...the blonde one? The tall one? One or both of those things...He dragged Jaune up by the armpits and had him stand face to face with his tormentor.

In reality Jaune was taller than Commando, but then again this situation was so far removed from reality that it was almost laughable. As it was, he could barely summon up the strength to gaze in defeat at the man, even with Rando supporting most if not all of his weight. 

When his eyes struggled to focus on the slowly growing pool of blood below him, he realised that the concussion was finally affecting his vision. He was honestly surprised that it had taken as long as it had. He was gazing blearily at the ground, but he blinked as something suddenly rushed into his field of view.

It was only as he landed back on the ground for who knew what time that he realized his nose was broken. Blood gushed down from the wound, turning his face into even more of a horror show. “Pay attention when your betters are talking, kid.” Someone hissed this in his ear, but he couldn’t tell who it was with his face getting reacquainted with the concrete. 

“As I was saying.” This was Commando, Jaune could hear the grin in his voice. “I’m really doing everyone a public service by getting rid of you.”

Jaune could barely repress the groan of pain as he was rolled, well kicked, onto his back. His limbs held no more resistance so they fell limply to his sides. He was honestly surprised he was still conscious, even if his body didn’t seem to realize that he was. 

Commando leant over him, his broad form blocking out everything from Jaune’s field of vision. “I’m doing everyone a public service,” he repeated, his tone deadly serious for once. His eyes held something in them that Jaune couldn’t identify, but whatever it was terrified him like nothing else had.

He thought that he’d reached the limits that he had for fear, but that expression showed him a whole new level that he hadn’t even touched before.

“Say it,” Commando snarled at the barely conscious and barely comprehending teen on the ground. He was smiling again, but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

Jaune licked his dry and cracked lips. When was the last time he’d had something to drink? A day? Two? “What do you want me to say?” His voice was rasping. He sounded like he either smoked ten packs a day or that he’d gargled a mouthful of sand. Possibly both.

“Say that this world is better off without useless kids you.” As he spoke he stood back up and walked slowly around to Jaune’s side. Try as he might, he couldn’t keep Commando in sight, so he stopped trying. Why not give up on this? It was just another thing to add to the list. “Say…” Commando paused, seemingly considering his next words carefully. 

“Say that you want me to rid Remnant of your worthless ass, and...and say that you deserve it.” Rando, who’d been leaning on the wall, glanced sharply at Commando. He looked for a moment like he wanted to speak up, but only for a moment. Fear of reprimand kept his mouth shut.

Jaune was stunned. Commando wanted to kill him? That was the logical progression of an abduction, but...to have him say it out loud… It just made the whole thing more real. He’d always assumed that they needed the information, so they would keep him alive. 

But the days where they asked questions were getting further apart. He really should’ve known that eventually they would get tired of him not giving them anything they needed.

He couldn’t say he was surprised. He wasn’t surprised that Commando wanted him dead, and he wasn’t surprised that he couldn’t come up with any reasons for Commando not to kill him. It was just as he said: The world was better off without him. The sooner he left it the better.

The whispering ghosts of his friends agreed with him from the edges of the room. Maybe he would be able to see them after this was all over.

“S-Sir I…” His voice gave out. How appropriate that it would abandon him when he needed it most. He  _ had _ to say this now. If not now, then never. He coughed to be able to continue, and blood gurgled up his throat and leaked out the corners of his mouth. Tears welled up in his eyes, mingling with the blood there and ruining any hope he had of being able to see.

“ _ Say it, Jauney-boy _ ” came the sing-songy voice from out of sight to his left. Jaune was  _ trying _ , really he was, but something seemed to have become lodged in his throat. There were words there, he just couldn’t say them. There was a pressure building in his chest, threatening to burst it open with every passing second. There was also a more physical pressure building in the area where he thought his hand might be, his fingers were throbbing with the weight of it.

“SAY IT!” Commando roared, putting his full weight on Jaune’s left hand. The silence that was left behind was deep and all-consuming, broken only by the clearly audible  _ crack _ of his fragile fingers snapping in two.

Jaune  _ screamed. _

His back arched off of the ground like he’d been electrocuted again, but he was pinned with Commando keeping firm weight on the ball of fire that used to be his left hand. Words were spilling from his mouth before he could register what he was saying. “-sorry  _ I’M SORRY!!” _ he screamed as Commando ground the heel of his shoe into the wreckage.

“I’m sorry? Is that what I told him to say?’ he commented pleasantly, turning to look at Rando in askance. “Is it? No. It’s not.” He turned back to Jaune, who was still babbling apologies and scrabbling at Commando’s foot in a vain attempt to rescue his hand. The man leant down, putting still more weight on Jaune’s hand, accidentally of course. “Now. Say it.”

“I de- I deserve to die, sir.” He was speaking very quickly, but he put as much sincerity into his words as he could muster. He was going mad with pain, but he meant every word. “This world is better- is better off with-without me.” It was too much. The familiar darkness gathering at the edges of his blurred vision was telling him as much. He barely noticed that he’d returned to muttered apologies, his voice hoarse from screaming and crying.

There was some kind of commotion happening in the other room or maybe out in the hallway, and Commando glanced up in irritation. “What are those morons up to now…?” he muttered, starting to walk in the direction of the entrance to the building before pausing and kneeling down by Jaune’s head.

“Don’t you worry, I haven’t forgotten about you, Jauney-boy. We’re not finished yet.” With one final kick to Jaune’s head, sending lightning bolts of pain shooting through it, he walked off. “Gelb! Jacob! What the fuck are you doing, can’t you keep those boys in line-?!”

As his voice faded from easy earshot, Jaune curled his body around his injured hand simply lay there as the stabbing pains faded into a steady low burn. He didn’t want to look at the wreckage, scared of what he would find. Scared that finally they’d done something irreparable, like they’d always threatened.

Now that his brain had worked through some of the pain, it had some processing power left over for conscious thought. He felt wrung out, like a wash cloth or something. There was no water left. He was empty.

There was no help coming. Why would there be? They’d left him to die, and he deserved it. Surprise was the only flicker of emotion he had left. Surprise that it’d taken him this long to accept that he had no place in this world. Surprise that he hadn’t given up on the world that had clearly given up on him.

He apparently had tears left in him. There was another surprise.

Pulling his left arm closer to him with a whimper, he recalled how only a few minutes… had it only been a few minutes? It felt like hours, a lifetime away… Only a few minutes previously he’d wished that his team was here. 

Jaune had wanted someone to dispute the allegations that Commando was making, but even then he had been unable to recall when they hadn’t been true. Those red hot words that had bored into his mind and wrecked havoc with his thoughts, he hadn’t doubted them then and he didn’t doubt them now.

He’d searched his feelings, and he’d found them to be true. He was not  _ good _ . He was not  _ smart _ . He was  _ useless _ . He. Was.  _ Broken. _

And he, Jaune Arc, was certainly not worth saving.


	12. Lost And Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle continues, and there’s only so many times that luck will be on your side

_ 'I really should have realized we were going to be outnumbered,’  _ Nora thought as a henchman’s fist impacted the side of her face. Nora stumbled back, rotating her jaw to try to relieve some of the pain. As she squared up again to face her opponent, shooting the man a feral grin, she glanced from side to side to keep note of how her friends were doing.

Yang’s bright hair caught her eye first, and she found that she had squared up against another equally hulking man. Nora’s opponent and hers could be twins, honestly. And maybe they were. They had little to no information about anyone in the gang, after all.

The brawler honestly seemed to be having the time of her life. Her pipe doubled her reach, and she kept hopping away just as the man went to take a swing. Not unlike a raging bull, every time this happened the henchman grew more and more furious. He was growing a little more wild with each swing, his rings glinting dangerously in the low light.

One swing came before she had time to jump away.

The ring cut sharply into the skin above her eye. Yang gave a sudden shocked cry of pain as she clapped a hand to her forehead and leapt back. She hissed in a breath and glared up at the man, eyes red as the Grimm’s and hair flickering into light. His proud grin dropped away immediately. “Yeah that was a gods damned mistake, Cupcake,” Yang growled. He looked downright  _ terrified _ now. 

Yang tossed her pipe to the side with a ringing clattering noise and threw a punch at the man’s slack-jawed expression with a roar that could rival an Ursa’s. Nora could only guess that the hit completely laid out the monster of a man because there was a thud a few seconds later of him hitting the ground. She had to guess because Blake and Weiss’s bout had shifted into her vision and blocked Yang from view.

Gelb, the one man whose name they knew, was actually their second opponent that evening. The first, poor guy, made the mistake of grabbing Weiss’s hair to gain an advantage. He certainly wasn’t going to be trying that again, if his unconscious huddled form was anything to go by. 

Blake’s expression barely flickered, it was freaky. If Ruby didn’t know any better, she’d think that Gelb was actually scared. She would be in the man’s position.

As it was, she was barely holding her own. Her own opponent, Jacob by what one of them had shouted when they’d first burst in, was twice her height for goodness’s sake, what had she been thinking? 

Well, she hadn’t been was the short and honest answer. Too used to having Crescent Rose by her side, she’d jumped into the fray and reached for it before remembering that it was still stashed carefully away back at base.

Her hand had grasped on open air, and the moment’s distraction had cost her dearly.

Ruby’s vision was double what it normally was, and black spots kept dancing in front of her eyes. The sadly familiar flickering light of a fading Aura was joining the spots, followed shortly after by the inaudible glass crack of it shattering.

She’d lost her cape a while ago, snagged by it from behind during her lapse in concentration, and she would have been having strong words with Jacob if she didn’t think she would vomit if she tried to open her mouth. 

Blood kept trickling past her hairline and oozing out of her nose. That was probably because Jacob seemed to have been getting a kick out of smashing her face into the concrete over and over again. She stood unsteadily and squinted at the man. How many of him were there?

“I can do this all day,” Ruby slurred, trying to shake the buzzing out of her head. She held her fists up in the classic boxer’s pose, trying to cast her mind back to the training she’s had, blinked hard to rid her vision of stars, and drawled, “Come at me, bro!” The henchman didn’t hesitate, and Ruby regretted everything she’d ever done.

Ren honestly knew where she was coming from. His opponent had him in a chokehold with his back pushed up against her chest. He could feel the woman’s quick strained breathing on the back of his head, and feel the pulse flickering through her arms as they contracted on his throat. 

They were actually close to the same height, so if he managed to get loose he could probably take her down. With a start he realized that he was the closest to the door into the other room, where Jaune was. If he could just get free...

He forced himself to relax, fighting against all the instincts in him that were screaming at him to fight back with all his strength. He had to try to lull the woman into a false sense of security. Ren could feel it working, and he sought out Yang to see if the brawler could take over for him. 

The girl seemed to be rescuing Ruby from where Jacob had her in a head-lock, but they made eye contact for a moment across the crowded room. Ren knew that was all the warning he would be able to give her. The woman’s grip was loosening, and not a moment too soon judging by the light-headedness he felt. It was now or-

“Gelb! Jacob! What the fuck are you doing, can’t you keep those boys in line?!” A new voice entered the commotion and almost immediately died off when the speaker saw the sight before him. For a split second he saw everyone freeze, but only for a second. Ren’s captor turned to face the new contender, and, by extension, Ren did as well.

He glared at the man, but the presumed leader only had eyes for Nora. Ren felt his heart clench with worry. Why did his partner  _ insist _ on always being in the middle of the fight, and thus being the most noticeable?

“Oh its the little Valkyrie, is it?” Commando called to the frozen ginger, “I’ve heard a lot about you from our… shall we say mutual friend?” Ren wasn’t sure Nora would be able to answer. She was positively shaking with rage, the kind that tended to steal any words from her mind. If she had any Aura left, Ren was certain he’d have seen lightning crackling over her limbs.

For his part, Ren’s eyes couldn’t seem to stop following the blood splattered on the hands the man kept gesturing around.

“You’re not my freaking friend, now tell me what you’ve done with Jaune,” Nora growled, stalking towards Commando.

“Oh, you’re not  _ my _ friend, but you’re  _ Jauney’s  _ friend,” Commando countered, stepping past Ren and grinning at Nora’s furious expression.

This gave Nora and the rest of them pause. Nobody had called him “Jauney” since Beacon. A common nickname back then, but Cardin’s input on the situation had quickly made it all but taboo. “Don’t you dare call him ‘Jauney’,” Nora snarled, her hands curling into fists at her sides, itching for her hammer.

“Why the fuck shouldn't I? I’ve certainly spent enough  _ time _ around the kid to earn the right to give him a nickname,” Commando snarked, jabbing Nora in the chest, towering over her the entire time. 

Yang appeared behind her, having gotten Ruby free. The brawler looked a little worse for wear, but Ren was thankful to see that she had all her faculties about her. Nothing a shot of Aura wouldn’t fix, as far as he could see. Ruby was a different story, but she was standing at least. 

“If it helps,” Commando cut in, distracting Ren from assessing Weiss and Blake, “from my last few conversations with him, I’m not sure he’ll remember you for much longer.” 

Nora’s face went white under her freckles. Well,  _ more _ white. “You freaking take that back.” For the first time in the tense exchange she seemed close to losing her composure.

“Yes, sadly his mind is going the way of the dodo bird,” Commando explained, sounding anything but upset and with his grin growing impossibly wider. “Another week or so, and I’m not sure poor Jauney will even remember his own name.”

If Commando had more to say, they never found out, because at that moment Nora seemed to finally snap. With no warning, she drew her fist back and slammed it into Commando’s face as hard as she could. 

With that, the spell was broken, and the remaining thugs shook off their dazes and dove towards the still standing members of team RWBY. Seeing this moment as the best and possibly the last opportunity he could have, Ren stepped back and ground the heel of his shoe into his captor’s foot as hard as he could.

Startled, she released him and fell to the ground clutching her foot and screaming curses mixed with yells of pain. By the time he looked up, Yang was already pulling Nora away from Commando, whose nose was bleeding and whose face was covered in slowly healing scratches. 

“Nora, just go!” She could understand why it was so hard to get the words through her thick skull, but this wasn’t the moment for gallantry or whatever the fuck. The dumbass needed to get to her teammate. 

“I’ve got this, go get Jaune, for fuck’s sake!” Yang was pretty sure they had this. They had this, right? Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ren absolutely destroy that woman’s foot and wrestle his way out of her grip. 

Commando was coughing and getting himself put back together, and Yang knew they only had a second or two before he would be ready to go. She gave the clearly reluctant ginger a shove towards Ren, who grabbed his partner and tugged her after him, but she wouldn’t move. “We’ll be right behind you!”

“We will?” Ruby asked, sounding both relieved and surprised. She had retrieved her cape somehow, but had gotten a few more bruises for her efforts. A few of the goons they’d previously dropped were getting back to their feet, and she was eyeing them with apprehension.

Weiss appeared next to them, and nodded. “Not a bad idea, for once in your life,” she admitted begrudgingly, adjusting her crown, which somehow had only been knocked askew. She was already gesturing towards the doorway, “I’ll cover your backs, get a move on.” Ruby nodded and immediately regretted it as a sharp pain shot through her head.

“Come on, sis, let’s get your sorry butt out of here,” Ruby slurred, as if she would be the one leading the charge into the fray. 

Yang rolled her eyes fondly and tugged one of her sister’s arms over her shoulder to keep her steady. The two of them began a sort of lopsided three-legged race after Ren and Nora, who had finally started to move towards the door.

“I will have you know that I have a great ass.” Ren heard Yang protest, and he couldn’t even begin to guess at the context necessary to get to that statement in this situation.

Behind them, the Gelb tugged the leader guy to his feet. “Get off me, I’m fine!” Yang heard him snap as she continued to lug her nearly limp sister towards the half open door. The volume in the tiny room was picking back up again as many of the bruised lackeys lurched back to their feet. 

She heard Big Dude mutter something about, “...need to grab something…” As she half-burst half-fell through the door behind Ren and Nora, who had stopped dead for some reason, Yang knew that guy would have to wait a second.

Her eyes fell on the huddled mass of concrete dust and blood in the corner. They were blocking the doorway, she  _ knew _ they were. “What’s the hold up?” Weiss barked, elbowing her way in. The heiress’s gaze must have found the body, because she fell suddenly silent.

Ruby couldn’t make her feet move. She could hear the breathing around her, and for a moment the whole world was still, silent. Then the person squinted up at them, and fear and horrible resignation filled Jaune’s haunted and clouded blue eyes as he whimpered, “No please, I can’t...” And the stillness was broken by the stunned shouts and the footfalls of the group.

If she hadn’t been so busy running to Jaune’s side, Nora might’ve noticed that Ren had stopped holding her back. As it was, it had only been Ren’s interference that had stopped her from ripping Big Dude apart with her bare hands. But all thoughts of vengeance had fled from her mind when she’d made eye contact with Jaune.

“Head’s up, we’ve got company,” Ren heard Blake call as he blearily watched Nora come to a sliding halt next to their brother in all but blood. Sure enough, at least two of the guys they’d previously dropped had gotten back to their feet.

“Oh for the gods’ sakes,” Weiss moaned, turning and shifting into an offensive stance. “You have  _ got  _ to be kidding me!” she complained. 

“Sorry you had to find out this way, Weiss Cream,” Yang chuckled bitterly, wiping a scarlet drip of blood from under her nose. Running low on Aura may be giving her a boost in strength that she was grateful for in these close quarters, but it was taking longer to heal any stray injuries she was getting. “But life ain’t fair.” 

Then she leapt back into the fray with a ferocity she hadn’t had before. Maybe seeing Jaune crumpled and carelessly discarded on the ground like a lost piece of paper had churned up her protective instincts. Weiss couldn’t say she would be able to match her enthusiasm, but she went to help nonetheless.

Jaune was grappling with consciousness the way someone grapples with a lost bar of soap in the bath. One second he remembered catching the eye of someone he thought he recognized in the door and mumbling something about how he couldn’t do this anymore. 

Because he really couldn’t. One more glimpse of one of his friends turning out to not really be there, and he was going to lose it. The next second, someone he hoped was actually there was kneeling by his side.

He also hoped with all his heart that there was no one there. Hallucinating was almost preferable.

Ren’s hands were ghosting over his body, seeming to be searching for some part of him that wasn’t injured.  _ ‘So that he can hurt you,’  _ whispered a malicious voice in the back of his head that Jaune tried to disregard.  _ ‘Everyone else hurt you,’  _ the voice reasoned.

“No...no please don’t,” he murmured, feebly trying to bat away the offending hands.

“Jaune! It’s just me, it’s okay!” Ren murmured, catching one of the blonde’s hands in his own. “It’s me, I’m here.” The fight was still raging behind him, but he had to trust that they could handle it.

Jaune began struggling as soon as he was restrained. “Let me go...Let-Let me go!” he stuttered desperately, tugging at Ren’s grasp for a moment before falling limp in defeat. “I’m sorry, p-please...I’m...I’m sorry…” He dissolved, quieting only slightly when Ren released his hand like it had burned him.

“Holy shit, what did they do to you?” Nora was growling, almost shaking with rage. Every touch sent Jaune into a panic or into a fresh wave of pained apologies. He didn’t seem to recognize them. 

“It’s Ren, it’s just me,” he tried to explain, “I’m not...We aren’t going to hurt you.”

Jaune blinked up at them, suddenly cursing his concussion. “...Nora? Ren?” he asked hesitantly, squinting to focus. “What...how…?” Recognition bloomed in his eyes, along with renewed panic. “You c-can’t be here! He-”

“-will be taken care of.”

“But-”

“-no but’s. Now come on-” Nora interrupted, reaching an arm under Jaune’s shoulders to lift him up. 

“No!” Jaune lurched up to a slouched sitting position and shrank away from Ren’s placating hands. “You can’t be here! Why are y-you even here? I-” A particularly loud clang and accompanying yelp of pain from behind them had Jaune flinching like somebody had struck him.

Which, by the looks of him, had already happened too many times to count.

The ginger could hear the fight picking up behind her. Yang was calling insults to her opponent, Ruby was chattering about nothing, and she could only hope that Blake and Weiss were still standing. By how Jaune was clutching at his ribs and cradling one of his hands, all while listing slightly to one side, Nora suspected they would need more than just an Aura hit to patch him up.

Moving slowly, treating Jaune not unlike a skittish deer, Ren slowly slid one arm behind Jaune’s back to help him up. The blonde flinched away slightly, but didn’t withdraw completely. Whether this was because he trusted Ren, or because he was too weak to resist, Nora didn’t know. 

She heard the blonde let out a choked sob as Ren must have brushed a particularly sore spot, and she jumped to Jaune’s other side, slinging his uninjured arm over her shoulder as gently as she could.

His armor was missing, and Nora felt a swell of anger. Jaune had always been a big guy, but somehow without the familiar platemail he seemed almost small. Vulnerable in a way that made her intensely uncomfortable. Jaune wasn’t supposed to be vulnerable, he was their fearless leader, righter of wrongs, protector of the innocent and all that jazz.

He was light, and far too thin. All the muscle he’d gained in Beacon and in the months afterward was gone. Lack of nourishment? Languishing in a dungeon? A combination of the two, or maybe something else? 

He was Jaune, there was no doubt, but… Gods… How was this cowering, emaciated, prisoner-of-war looking guy the same Jaune who’d always seemed invincible, even without Aura?

Ren could feel his ribs through the wafer thin shirt Jaune was wearing. Faded red, torn and tattered, stained with blood and who knew what else. A sad facsimile of the same shirt that he’d worn to bed the night he’d gone missing.

And then, just as they were beginning to gain the upper hand, a deadly calm voice broke through the chaos.

“Hold it right there.” 


	13. Icarus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heroic sacrifice looks good on paper. In practice, it's much trickier to achieve.

“Hold it right there.” 

The impromptu fight stuttered to a halt as everyone left standing turned to see the dim light glint darkly off something held in the leader’s hand. From Ren’s side, Jaune saw something out of Ren’s sight and drew in a shuddering gasp. He flickered his eyes over to make contact with his teammate’s pink ones and then back at the thing out of Ren’s sight. 

Having caught sight of the look in Jaune’s eyes, Ren stood cautiously, helped Jaune to his feet, tried not to think about how his teammate was very obviously leaning on him for support, and turned to where he was looking. 

Then his vision tunneled. Was that a-? Did he have-?

Jaune’s breathing beside him was worsening, but whether that was from pain or shock or fear or a mixture of the three, Ren couldn’t tell. His universe had shrunk down to only contain himself, the bastard in front of him who had nearly broken his teammate, and the gun held in the man’s hand that was pointing directly at Nora’s chest.

Nora, who he knew full well, had already had her Aura broken by the fight prior.

“Don’t-!” Jaune, gasped out, his voice too hoarse, too weak. His eyes were focused on the gun pointing at Nora’s chest with as much as intensity as he could muster in his state. Jaune was honestly amazed that he was still standing, even with Ren’s help. “Please...please don’t do this…” 

Commando’s face was displaying an emotion Jaune couldn’t quite identify. If it was an emotion, it was a totally emotionless one. It was hatred, implacable hatred. It was cold, not like ice is cold, but like a wall is cold. It was impersonal, not as a randomly flung fist in a crowd is impersonal, but like a computer-issued court summons is impersonal. 

And it was deadly - again, not like a bullet or a knife is deadly, but like a brick wall across a motorway is deadly. Despite this, Jaune did not doubt that the pistol in the man’s hand would kill Nora any less efficiently. 

Commando tilted his head to the side slightly, as if not quite understanding what Jaune said. “Anything but this! Please...pleaseplease **_please_ **... S-Sir anything but this.” He was begging now. He almost couldn’t bring himself to care, but somewhere in the recesses of his mind he wondered how much further he could still sink. 

The fighting had drawn to a halt behind the man, and Jaune could see vaguely that his friends were exchanging shocked glances. Sir? Had he just called that son of a bitch _sir?!_

Jaune almost sighed with relief when Commando met his eyes and a slow dawning of comprehension passed over his features. Not breaking eye contact Commando grinned a wide and manic smile, Jaune sagged in his teammate’s grips slightly and nodded

“You know what, kid?” Commando rasped, his usual candor gone and for a moment his grin slipped from his face. “For once in your useless life, I think I agree with you.” His eyes narrowed and his smile returned, somehow harsher than before. “It’s time to put you out of **my** misery.” And the man’s aim shifted onto the knight’s unprotected chest, a change of aim so minute it went unnoticed by anyone not standing in the path of the bullet.

If only the other person it had been aiming towards had been in a state to notice the shift in time.

Nora was trying to think of how to get out of this, but the thoughts weren’t coming. With Nora’s whole consciousness still focused on the gun, she barely noticed the almost feral snarling smile on Big Dude’s lips, the growled response to the shaking teen, or the slightly shifted aim until it was almost too late. Nora barely even had time for her eyes to widen in alarm or to feel Jaune stiffen beside her. 

With everything she had, everything she _was,_ focused on the gun however, she couldn’t miss the blinding bright flash and the single accompanying **_BANG_ ** like a whip crack, a thunderstorm, and a death knell all rolled into one. Her world slowed to a crawl, just like they said in the movies, and she felt like she was moving through maple syrup with how slow she was going. She vaguely felt Jaune push Ren out of the way, and-

-And suddenly Nora couldn’t stand. She was too _heavy._ She crumpled to the ground, too legitimately taken by surprise to stay standing when another element entered the equation. Sound and feeling and sight all crashed back together again as the world seemed to make up for lost time by making a lot of things happen in a very short timespan. 

Nora fell, and her yelp of shock and pain as her already injured face made contact with the rough concrete were lost in the cacophony that had been left in the aftermath of the gunshot. 

People were yelling and there were several low thuds as the fight started back up with new ferocity. Nora lay dazed on the ground for the duration of the fight, faintly feeling a growing warmth on her shoulder, and she had a sense that a weight was laying on top of her, crushing the air out of her lungs. Her ears were ringing, her vision was speckled. She was completely disoriented.

The remaining thugs were still being taken down.

Blake was focused on them. Yang was focused on them. Weiss was focused on them. Even Ruby was focused on them, as much as she could focus on anything.

But as the weight vanished and he was able to sit up, Nora was focused on the pain in her face, and the blood running down her chest

“Holy _shit!_ I got shot guys- fuck!” Nora was gasping, her head throbbing. She wiped at her shoulder, probing for the bullet hole that she was expecting to find. But...it wasn’t there..?

“Nora?” Ren’s calming voice echoed loudly in the empty warehouse, shifting into Protective Mom Mode. Ren turned wildly to see the large blood stain on the ginger’s shirt and jacket and he dashed back to her side from where she'd fallen. “Where are you hit?!”

Ruby and Ren were at her side in an instant: Ren’s hands searching, pressing down, trying to stop the bleeding, and Ruby hopping from one foot to the other, wondering how she could help and rambling with a forced smile on her face. Before long, Ren sat back on his heels and wiped a hand across his forehead. “You didn’t get shot,” he said, looking more than a little relieved, but also more than a little confused. 

At a particularly loud clanging noise, he glanced over his shoulder to check on the others and saw that Blake and Yang were handling the remaining lackeys, Yang delighting in hitting them over the head every chance she got. Weiss had seemingly taken it upon herself to handle the leader’s right hand man. Ren almost felt sorry for the man. Almost.

“I...I wasn’t?” Nora was as confused as he was. Ruby seemed to be occupied with something else, and was glancing around distractedly. “No, I wasn’t,” she repeated, shocked. “I was not shot.”

At the firm restatement, her shoulders sagged in relief for a brief moment, until a glance at Ren’s look of horrified epiphany spread across his face. Nora’s eyes widened as she got it, “But if I didn’t get shot...then...whose blood-?”

Ruby got there first, as her eyes lit on the person she had been searching for, and her face went staggeringly pale, “Jaune? Jaune!!” Nora and Ren spun on their heels, and Yang even glanced over at the outburst before paying for her distraction when she got a foot to the ribs. There, leaning on the wall he had previously been slumped next to, was a very downtrodden and decidedly worse-for-wear Jaune Arc. He raised a shaking pale hand. “Present.” 

Jaune’s voice was frail in its banter. He was sitting up, unlike how he had been when they’d found him. But currently he was leaning against the wall for support, and not because he was cuffed to it. His knees weren’t up to his chest in an attempt to retain body heat like they had been earlier, now he had brought his knees up because sitting in a fetal position didn’t tear at the gaping hole in his chest. 

If Ren had thought he’d looked pale before, that was nothing compared to now. His skin was ashen gray, his much shorter hair had a coating of concrete dust from where he had hit the floor. In fact, if it wasn’t for the red blood oozing from a cut on his forehead and cutting stark lines through the grime, for the bruises and cuts making their colourful appearances on his arms and face like gasoline on water, and for the growing dark red stain like a blooming flower on his tattered remains of a shirt shirt, he would’ve been completely colourless. 

Even his shining blue eyes looked less saturated than normal.

“Jaune, holy shit.” A huge lump welled up in Nora’s throat as she took in the sight of her leader. “Did...did you take a bullet for me…?” Nora half-scrambled half-ran across the concrete, Ren hot on her heels, and Ruby taking the lead.

“Well I mean not really, ya know…? Just sorta...sorta convinced him that I was more worth the bullet...but look at that!” He broke off with a weak smile, his words slurring together and his eyes not quite focused, “...I guess I’m not...not just a useless little hostage after a-”

“WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?” Nora was shouting, running her hands through her hair. She was ripping off her jacket, pressing it roughly to Jaune’s chest. The bullet hole was bleeding furiously, the entrance wound right over his heart….wait... _RIGHT OVER HIS HEART?!_

“It’s probably punctured a lung,” came a calm voice from his left. She glanced over at Ren, absently taking note of his calm voice that was covering up the obvious shaking in his frame and his hands as he knelt beside the ginger. Seeing her look of bewildered confusion, he explained haltingly, “That’s why his breathing sounds like that…” 

And he gestured vaguely in Jaune’s direction before ripping strips off of Ruby’s offered cape to use as makeshift bandages to do what he could for his almost brother. Now that Nora noticed it, Jaune’s breathing was coming out in increasingly loud whistles and wheezes.

“What was I thinkin’?” Jaune gasped out, almost amused. “I was thi-” He let out a wet cough, a hacking sound that made Ruby cringe and Ren redouble his efforts with his other injuries. Blood collected in the corners of Jaune’s mouth. This was not good, not good at all. Nora’s hands were shaking, she pressed tighter to the wound. 

Jaune let out a groan at the pressure, but continued on. “I was thinkin’ that I shoulda been the one to die...didn’t want you to get shot and all...and get your jacket all stained...but now you’ve gone and...and got it all covered in blood anyways…” Jaune’s eyes were half-lidded, and the smile he was trying to put on his face was wane and grim despite his best efforts. Here he was, bleeding out on the floor after months of captivity, and _still_ he was the one trying to put them at ease. 

“Don’t worry Jaune, it’s going to be fine. I promise. You hear me, it’s going to be fine. Paramedics are on their way,” Ren said with a pointed look at Ruby and then a suggestive glance at the doorway behind them. Ruby nodded and scurried away, already taking out her scroll and dialing. 

Ruby felt something akin to disgust bubbling in her throat. Suddenly it was all real. Her best friend could be dying, and Ruby was just standing there like a stranger. She'd handed Ren her cape without a second thought, anything to help, but that was all she'd been able to bring herself to do. Ruby dug around her pockets with shaking fingers, finally tugging her scroll from them. It took her a moment to properly click the necessary numbers, and the ringing seemed to last forever, pulling viciously on her frayed nerves.   
  
When a woman picked up, Ruby nearly cried with relief, gave her the address and explained, less than coherently, that they needed an airship. Though Jaune was barely conscious, his body was still tense, and Ruby’s heart clenched. 

Jaune heard through the fog bank he was currently engulfed in that someone was getting the para...parame...His brain couldn’t hold the word, especially not with how his thoughts seemed to be drifting away every time he tried to catch one. “You guys..you don’t hafta call the doctors…” He waved his hand vaguely at the blurs of colour beside him, and something, someone caught him by the wrist. 

Nora? Was that Nora? Maybe. Probably not. Why would it be? it never was actually her all the other times. “I’m really not worth...not worth the...the…” Whatever train of thought he’d been following had just left the station without him on board. That seemed to be happening more and more. Vaguely, Jaune wondered why that was. He felt like he should be worried about that, but he was too tired to care all that much.

Neither of his friends missed Jaune’s little declaration, on the contrary it made their hearts sink straight down into their stomachs. If Jaune was speaking candidly about this, then he was worse off than they knew. Ren was helping Nora now, placing his own hands over the wound, allowing Nora to work to get Jaune lying flat on his back. The knight let out a hiss of discomfort at being moved, but his face betrayed the extent of his pain. 

It had dropped two shades of colour, the crimson specks at his lips and streaking down his face stood out like ink on white paper. His skin was cold, _scarily_ cold, but he wasn’t shivering. Was that a bad thing? Nora couldn’t remember, and her thoughts were blinking in and out like static on a television. “Ren? Why’s he...why’s he so cold?” The ginger hated the tremble in her voice, but she was rapidly losing her composure. 

Looking up from his work, he said tersely, “Hypothermia, most likely,” and he hesitated a moment before diving back into his work with renewed intensity. Hypothermia? But when…? 

Nora remembered with a start the room they had brushed off. The small dark _freezing_ room with blood stains on the floor and chains attached to the wall. It had been like an ice chest in there, but in their rush she had never thought… “That room we passed...Do you think that he-?!” 

The nearly imperceptible hardening of Ren’s gaze told her enough. Jaune rested his head on Nora’s lap and Nora carded her fingers through his hacked-off hair. Her stomach knotted as Jaune leaned weakly into the barest amount of warmth they provided. Nora’s hands were shaking almost uncontrollably at this point, and she kept looking at them. At the _red_ on them. That was Jaune’s _lifeblood._ How was Ren so _calm?!_

She looked at him, desperation clear on her face as she tried to find any of that in his. Ren to his credit, was a hardened shell at this point, but his eyes were wide with fear. He tried to slip further into that state of calm his father had taught him about as he silently willed his hands to work faster, but it was quickly becoming clear that he was really just trying to extend Jaune’s time until the airship arrived. 

Could he hear sirens in the distance, echoing through the dark building? Or was that simply wishful thinking? With the tension and stress pulling him tight enough to snap like a rubber band, when Jaune opened his cracked lips and rasped something his head shot up fast enough to give him whiplash.

He was raising one arm, slowly, _slowly_ and he grabbed as tightly as he could to Nora’s sleeve, with a kind of desperation that made Ren’s blood boil. Jaune shouldn't have to be desperate, shouldn't have to have that much fear in his dull eyes. Nora was gazing with rapt attention at her friend, and was trying not to notice that his breaths were becoming shallower and shallower. 

Jaune blinked his eyes open. Had they been closed? _When did his eyes close?!_ They were glassy looking, and seemed like they were seeing a million different things and nothing at the same time, but they fixed more or less solidly on Nora’s gaze.

“If I don’t ma-” he rasped only to be cut off by a coughing fit that made him sound as if he was making a valiant effort to cough up a lung. His grip didn’t loosen though, and if Ren didn’t know any better, he’d think he was using the last of his strength to deliver this message. He didn’t want to think about what would happen when that strength ran out. 

As his fit came to a close, Jaune fingers slipped slightly on her arm and he sagged for a moment. With one last clearly monumental effort Jaune drew himself up and almost whispered “If I don’t make it, just...just tell Pyrrha I love her…” With that final proclamation, his eyes rolled up and back into his head and his hand released Nora’s arm and fell to the ground with a thud. 

As soon as Jaune collapsed, Ren dived for his wrist and checked his pulse. It was...yes it was still there. Fast, and thready, and weaker than he would’ve liked, but it was still there. The low whistles coming from Jaune’s windpipe were proof enough that he was still breathing. 

_Heart still beating. Lungs still breathing._

He repeated these facts to himself in a mantra. _Heart still beating. Lungs still breathing_ . As long as they were both true, then Jaune was still alive. Still with them. _Heart still beating. Lungs still breathing._ Nevermind the fact that his other injuries alone would put him in critical condition, nevermind compounding a bullet wound and hypothermia on top of that. _Heart still beating. Lungs still_ \- the sound of a sob reached his ears and broke him out of his robotic repetitions.

Nora looked up at Ren with tear filled eyes and a look of desolation that hurt to behold. “He...he-!” The words wouldn’t come. Jaune had looked straight at him, with those eyes that looked at her and looked _through_ her, and he’d… He’d told Nora… After everything that had happened he had-! Thought Nora was a stranger...and with his last strength...had begged them to let Pyrrha know that she was loved. 

Her breathing hitched and she gazed down at Jaune’s body- _NO do NOT say body, Nora._ The ginger reprimanded herself. _A body implies that he’s gone, that there isn’t anything left in it, that he’s just a...a body. A SHELL._

“Jaune... Jaune isn’t a shell, Ren…” she felt herself cry out hoarsely. “He’s not a shell!” He paused in his repetitions only for a moment before returning to them as Nora lowered her forehead to meet Jaune’s. _Heart still beating. Lungs still breathing. Heart still beating. Lungs still breathing._

**_Heart still beating._ **

**_Lungs still breathing._ **

There was nothing more to be done but to wait. The others had joined them now, and Ren rose mechanically to help them if he could. After a moment, Yang sent him firmly to sit down. She’d take up the watch. The taller teen sat by Blake’s side and stared at nothing, his arms folded on his knees, and his chin resting on them. 

Weiss stood nearby, keeping a begrudging watch for a little while before leaving to watch for the airship. Just standing around was making her feel more helpless than she liked, and that _hole_ in his _chest_... One of her hands strayed to her side, where only weeks before, Jaune had miraculously healed a wound of her own. She couldn't stay in that room.

Ruby was on one knee beside Nora, rubbing circles into the ginger’s back, muttering nothing of importance. Rambling with whatever came into her head. Vaguely wondering where her cape had gotten off to, and whether the fabric wrapped around Jaune's torso was that red because of blood.

Yang crouched by Jaune’s side and took his wrist in her hand. Gods above, he was fucking _cooold!!_ She found his pulse and counted…and waited...and...there it was! Whew! _Heart still beating._ She’d heard Ren muttering that to himself when she’d come over, and for now it was still true.

 _‘For how much longer, I guess we’ll see,’_ she thought more grimly than she usually would be under ordinary circumstances, but these were hardly ordinary circumstances by any definition.

Jaune’s chest was barely falling and rising now, and Yang had to lean down to listen to it to hear the tell-tale _whoosh_ of air into the damaged lungs. It was there, though not as loud as she’d expected. He must be worse off than she thought. _Lungs still breathing._

For how much longer, fuck only knew. 

“Fuck he needs an airship…” she looked over at Ruby more sharply than she really meant. “Sis you called one right? Because he needed to be at a goddamn hospital like five hours ago by the looks of it.” 

Ruby didn't even speak up, just nodded. It was a testament to the situation that neither of them have any snark to trade back and forth. Fuck fuck _fuckFUCK_ **_FUCK!!_ ** She slammed her hands down on the concrete, unheeding of the pain and roared, “ _W_ _HERE’S THE FUCKING AIRSHIP?!”_

If they were in any other situation the look of shock and wide-eyed horror on Ruby’s face would have had Yang teasing her mercilessly. But not right now. Not now while they all sat in a cold dark warehouse with one of their friends bleeding out on the ground beside them. Gods he was _dying!_

Yeah she’d known him to get roughed up on the regular, but his ridiculous Aura had always stopped him from taking any serious injury. But this was on a whole ‘nother level. This is what had happened while he’d been missing.

This is what they’d been too late to stop.


	14. Not Goodbye Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They say the devil’s water it ain’t so sweet

“Guys…” Blake said, and her voice was strained. A tear worked its way down her face, and Yang cringed, rubbing at her own eyes with the heel of her hand. “What if…” Blake paused, voice laden with grief. She bit her lip, apology in her eyes. “What if…? What if he doesn’t make it?” 

Ren sucked in a breath, feeling like he’d been slammed into. His chest was tight and he had to work harder to breathe. It’s what he’d been thinking…but hearing someone say it out loud was jostling. The confirmation of his own thoughts hurt all the more

Yang was the first that spoke, Ruby too stunned to speak. She stepped forward, golden hair falling in front of her blazing eyes

“He’s not gonna die.” If Ren hadn’t known it was her talking, he wouldn’t have been able to tell it was Yang past the shake and the palpable pressure of her words. Yang was tearing up now, but Ren nodded numbly. “We can’t give up on him!” Her words were loud and abrasive, and even she flinched. But Ren nodded once more. 

“She’s right,” he said softly, voice scratchy. “Jaune’s not going to die. He can’t die.” But his words sounded less like reassurance than disbelief, even to himself. Ren watched like an outsider as Ruby stepped up beside Yang.

“But what if he doesn’t?” Blake asked. Her voice was high and anxious. She sounded like she was in pain. “What if Jaune…” She couldn’t say it. The word would not pass her lips, and she looked like she would be sick

“We should just…” Ren bit his lip, choosing his words carefully. He thought, very distantly, that Blake looked like she might pass out. “We should be ready. To support him after....” He couldn’t clarify.

Ren was ready to leave. He felt numb, strange inside, like he was a stranger to everything, and yet he felt all the turmoil there had been. He still felt everything so how could he be numb? He was processing the situation too slowly and he didn’t know how to react. He didn’t know what to do. He wanted to take a walk. He wanted to be alone. But he couldn’t leave them now. 

He remembered when they burst through the door in a flurry of rage and adrenaline. Ren had heard someone shuffling behind the crates and he’d jumped and turned. His eyes had widened and something between a sob and Jaune’s name had jumped from his throat. 

He knelt back down beside Nora. There he was. Jaune. Alive, but so, so awful looking. He was in the tattered remains of what might have once been a grey shirt, but it had turned dark red with the amount of blood soaked into it. One eye was sunken in, but the other was swollen shut, turned deep shades of purple and blue. Every bit of his skin he could see was spattered with bruises and cuts in every stage of healing, and dried blood. 

His left arm hung brokenly by his side, and his right arm had fallen limply to his side when he’d lost consciousness. Tears cut lines through the grime on his face, and Ren could see the lack of sleep in the dark circles under his eyes. Odd discolored bits of skin littered his arms and shoulders, and one cheek had a nasty cut in it. He was gaunt and pale, and any life that he had held was gone. Skin that had held a healthy glow, now was pallid and clammy.

Nora was frozen and didn’t react when he joined her. Jaune winced when Ren’s movement jostled his left arm. He was muttering again, and his voice was broken and raspy, and so small. It was a ghost of what it used to be, and Ren couldn’t process what he had said. Ren felt a scream building up in his chest, but bit it back, moving closer to Jaune to help him. To do something, anything.

He watched, hesitant to touch him suddenly, as Nora carded her fingers through their delirious teammate’s hair. She held him on the ground, gently placing his head in her lap. “Has anyone called an airship?” she nearly whispered. 

He nodded before his thoughts could re-attach themselves to the situation, but when they did, his feelings slammed into his body. The jolt of it made his hands shake, as he knelt by Jaune, next to Nora. His quivering fingers hovered in the air above his brother’s face, afraid to touch now that it was somehow  _ real _ . Tears fell from his eyes as he looked up at Nora.

_ “I’m so sorry,” _ he thought at her, too choked to say words. His eyes landed on the terrible gaping hole in Jaune’s chest. 

Ren was terrified. 

* * *

Yang felt her apprehension rising as she listened to Blake’s shaky voice. Horror and bone deep rage was rising up in her as her hands began to shake and tears welled up in her eyes. What if he doesn’t make it… The words echoed in her head, poisonous and cruel. She took an unconscious step forward, fist clenching, not bothering to move the hair that had fallen in her eyes.

“He’s not gonna die!” She said, words heavy as they fell off her tongue. She turned a sideways glance at Ruby as she stood to stand next to her. A splash of relief filtered through Yang and her unfocused anger dwindled a little. “We can’t give up on him!” She flinched at the shrillness of her own voice.

She winced as she thought about Nora and Ren. About Jaune’s parents. How would they live if—? She stopped the train of thought with a shake of her head, determined to not let it get any further. 

“She’s right,” Ren said softly, voice scratchy. “Jaune’s not going to die. He can’t die.” But for once his words sounded less like reassurance than disbelief, and they left a bad taste in Yang’s mouth. 

She felt her temper rise as Blake seemed to get more frantic. “But what if he doesn’t?” She asked. Her voice was high and anxious, and Ruby’s reaction to these words made Yang wanted to draw her sister into her arms and never let go. “What if Jaune…” Blake couldn’t say it. Yang could see the tic in her jaw as she fought tears. Could see her skin pale as the word crossed her mind. She thought it was true, but she couldn’t fully acknowledge it. Because he’s not going to die.

“We should just…” Ren bit his lip, choosing his words carefully. Yang didn’t want him to say it. Fuck, she didn’t want him to say it. “We should be ready. To support him after...” He didn’t seem able to clarify.

The unsaid word bounced around her head, smacking into the walls of her frail barrier between the worst of the emotions and her. For now, she was safe from them. She could deny Jaune’s possible death with anger and bluster like she normally did. 

But when Yang had turned the corner to see Jaune’s broken body hunched like a broken doll. When she had seen him, bloodied and pale and different. When she had watched him curl tighter into a ball and denied their wish to help him… 

The barrier had broken. The silence that followed was heartbreaking. The flurry of movement and sounds that followed afterwards were alarming and emotionally draining. Yang was too angry to remember it later. 

Yang watched as Ren landed back on his knees next to Nora, one hand on Nora’s back to keep him stable, and one hand taking Jaune’s, just to make sure he wasn’t dead. If he could feel the warmth of his hand, then…

But Jaune’s hand was cold, as Yang knew from when she’d taken Ren’s place making sure the knight still had a fucking  _ pulse.  _ She heard Nora asking after an airship. Yang vented some of her feelings by kicking the prone body the leader guy. It helped a little, knowing that she was giving this bitch just a taste of what he’d given her friend, but it didn’t fix everything. 

Yang drew Ruby into her arms and held her there, letting her sister bury her face in her golden curls. Blake came up by her side and took Yang’s shaking hand in her own, the faunus not even bothering to hide how much her own hand was shaking. 

Yang was terrified.   


* * *

Blake felt absolutely terrible just for suggesting the idea that Jaune might die, but she knew that, while realism sucked, it was also a good thing in the end. The idea that her friend might die, that fact that her friend might have been brutally murdered stuck a sword through her heart, but having hope, just for it to be taken away was the worst feeling, and Blake wanted everyone to live through this. She knew all too well how this situation ended. 

Despite this, as soon as the words left her mouth she flinched. They were too much, and Blake could feel the panic crackle in the air following them. She sucked in a breath as she watched the group’s reactions. It was silent for a moment, and almost everyone was crying. Blake herself included. 

“He’s not gonna die!” Yang spoke up first, and Blake cringed at her expression. It was a mix of determination, fear, panic, and anger. Blake felt her chest tighten and her ears flattened to her head as she watched as her partner’s shaking hands clench into fists. “We can’t give up on him!” 

Blake flinched back at, not just the shrillness of the words, but the weight they carried. Her heart sank to her boots as she listened. And then Ren joined her, looking wrecked, and Blake felt guilt crawl up her throat. 

It shouldn’t have gotten to the point where they were arguing over the possible corpse of their friend. He should be safe at home. She saw Yang’s eyes flare in rage as she persisted, and she almost wished that she would actually hit her. Yang clearly wanted to. 

Her own words rattled in her head and she felt a sob bubble up in her throat, before she pushed it down. It came out as a choked whimper. Her movements were mechanical as she brought a hand up to brush her tears back. Her skin was itchy and her face felt hot under the tears. 

Jaune was alive, and there was this strange mix of relief, guilt, fear, and joy crashing into each other in her mind. Her legs were frozen, but she wanted to move. She wanted to help Jaune, and Blake realized that she had just declared him dead, not ten minutes before. 

She watched as Ren made his way back over to Jaune, sinking onto the ground behind him, looking at Jaune, at the injuries. Oh Gods. Nora’s face was turned down as she stared at Jaune’s head in her lap. Her whole body was shaking, but she clutched Jaune’s hair like he would dissipate into the air if she didn’t. 

Blake shot Yang a guilty look, trying to find her eyes. But she was occupied with Ruby, and didn’t meet her eyes. Blake settled for taking Yang’s shaking hand in her own, not bothering to hide the tremor in her own hand. 

Ren was holding Jaune’s not-broken hand, and holding onto Nora’s shoulder. She was paler than usual, and Blake felt apprehension curl in her gut at the ginger’s broken expression. 

Blake was terrified.

* * *

Nora was shaking. Her body was numb, but she knew that she was shaking. She wondered if she was holding too tight on Jaune’s hair, and loosened her grip. But panic clutched at her throat, choking her, until she returned the grip to what remained of his hair.  _ We’re not gonna lose him _ , she thought distantly, as she gently held the side of Jaune’s face with her other hand. We’re not gonna lose him We’re not gonna lose him We’re not gonna lose him…

She wasn’t aware of anything around her. Not sounds, not sights, not smells, just the feeling of the knight’s hair under her fingers. The sight of him bleeding, hurting, dying, broken. There was a rage building in her, a terror resounding in her bones. But she couldn’t move. She knew she was crying, but she couldn’t bring herself to remove her hands. If she let go of Jaune, Jaune would disappear. Jaune would  _ die.  _

When the EMTs came for Jaune and tried to remove Nora, she fought them, incoherent, upset. She screamed at them, held tighter to her leader. It took a while for them to separate them, but only with the help of Ren. Only when her partner entered her field of vision, did Nora allow them to take him away. 

Nora was terrified.

* * *

He was drifting in and out of consciousness.

He’d open his eyes only to have the pain knock him out again. 

His chest was on  _ fire. _

Every breath choked. 

“He’ll live,” someone says distantly. 

But did he want to?

Jaune was terrified. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for wait, moving into college is a hassle and a half


	15. In The Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the lone gunman is taken down, it’s time for everyone to collect their thoughts, and all of their scattered friends.

Lights were glaring through the open door and were doing their best to filter through the distant clouded windows. Where there had only minutes before been silence, now there was suddenly too much noise. Paramedics and police rushed into the warehouse like a tidal wave and fell upon the unsuspecting teens in a wall of frantic activity and sound.

The difference between the sudden activity and the previous deathly stillness was jarring, and Ruby had to continually remind herself that the fight was over and these weren’t just bigger, more heavily armed assailants.

There were sirens and there was just too much _sound_ everywhere. Absently Ruby thought she might be able to hear an airship overhead. That couldn’t be right, Mistral police wouldn’t send an airship. Would they? She wasn’t sure anymore.

Her thoughts were flickering in and out like a radio tuned to a faulty station, and her head felt like it was stuffed full of cotton. It was night time, right? Then why was everything so freaking _bright?!_

Someone was standing over her and was peppering her with questions that she could barely register let alone answer.

“I’m really fine,” she protested, trying to brush off the paramedic’s questions. Didn’t he understand that she was fine and there were people who actually needed help? Yang’s hand was all busted up and, and Ren had nearly been choked to death. For goodness sake, what about Jaune who’d… who’d actually been shot? Ruby was fine. She was _fine_.

The paramedic was holding her head in a way that she was sure was supposed to be gentle, but it sent pain shooting like lightning through her head anyways. He was shining a flashlight into her eyes, which she didn’t appreciate in the slightest, and he honestly didn’t seem to be happy with the results of her test. “You’ve got a lot of blood on your face there, kiddo,” he commented, examining the large cut on Ruby’s forehead.

“You should see the other guy,” Ruby slurred proudly by way of an explanation, while simultaneously feeling an intense desire to never see “the other guy” ever again. She dimly remembered someone smashing her face into the ground over and over again during the fight. Who though? She thought she should probably know, but her short term memory seemed to have short-circuited.

He finally put the damn flashlight away, thank the gods, and held up his finger. “Can you follow this with your eyes, please?” She squinted at it. Which finger was she supposed to follow? He _had_ to be holding up more than one, but that seemed like a bad thing to mention. “Get knocked out?” the paramedic asked her urgently, still waving his multiple fingers in front of her eyes.

She didn’t freaking know that. It’d been really dark, so maybe? “Someone smashed my face into the ground.” Ruby found herself mumbling out some kind of response to the man. A brief glimpse of ginger hair and a sudden swell of noise indicated that the paramedics, or maybe the police, had finally removed Nora from Jaune. Where were the rest of her friends? Were they hurt? Were they _still_ getting hurt?!

Her cape was missing, but for once she hadn’t even noticed. One of her hands was scratching absently at the top of her head. It was slowly getting more and more stained with blood, but this didn’t even register in her mind. Was everyone else okay? The crowd had increased so much, and a small irrational part of her was convinced that this was more of that gang here to freaking _kill_ them.

The fact that she could still hear Nora screaming and fighting her way back to Jaune wasn’t helping matters.

“Are you Ruby Rose?” The paramedic asked, still checking her faculties.

“Yeah!” she replied hurriedly, suddenly desperate to find the others. Strength in numbers.

“Can you tell me what day it is?”

“It’s still Friday!” At least Ruby hoped it was still Friday. Was Jaune- _Oh gods…_ Was Jaune even alive?! This thought pierced her chest, not unlike how the bullet had so recently pierced Jaune’s. A gurney carrying her best bro’s battered form sped past. Two paramedics were holding the doors of the airship open, and two more were pulling the gurney and yelling instructions to their companions in the emergency vehicle.

A fifth and final paramedic was riding along on the gurney and was performing chest compressions.

This sight flooded her body with ice and seemed to clear away some of the fog that was clouding her mind. Ruby’s medic was still prattling on about how she would need stitches and how she should find somewhere to lay down, but the dawning realization that Jaune was dying or already dead blocked out the man’s words. The medic got up to leave, but she couldn’t let him go without asking, “Is Jaune dead?!”

Ruby hated how her voice sounded brittle and cracked on the words.

“I wouldn’t know anything about that!” the paramedic called apologetically over his shoulder, already jogging away. It’s still far too bright and far too loud, but she had to find the others. Unsteadily the teen climbed to her feet, right hand still clutching a now soaked bandage to the top of her head. Her Aura still wasn’t replenishing properly, and it felt more than ever like she was running on empty.

She lurched to her feet on shaking legs. Everything seemed simultaneously too close and too far away. And she was surrounded by strangers.

Ruby blinked and when she opened her eyes… she was outside? It was like a puzzle piece had fallen out of the universe. Squinting through the angry lights of the airships and police cars, she could see the distant doors of the school. Was that talent show still happening? It seemed amazing that something as simple as a talent show could still be a thing that existed, what with everything that had just happened.

Did the people inside even know something happened? They had to, what with all the noise from the sirens. A chunk of ice settled in her stomach as she noticed that the police had shown up at around the same time as the airship, but she hadn’t called them. 

She’d only called the airship, none of them had called the police, and the only people who knew where they were were Oscar and Uncle Qrow. Oh gods, and Uncle Qrow would’ve been busy stalling, so he wouldn’t have been able to call! So the only person who could’ve called the police was-

“-Where’s Ren?” asked Yang, appearing at Ruby’s elbow from the growing throng. She jumped and immediately regretted it when a bolt of pain shot through her skull.

“Oh sis, thank goodness, it’s just you,” she muttered, one hand clutched to her chest. At any other time Ruby might’ve been more dramatic in her reaction and Yang might’ve called her on it, but not right now. 

Not when this simple action had sent her adrenaline back into overdrive and her heart racing fit to burst out of her chest. Not when it seemed like half the fingers of her sister’s metal hand were bent at unnatural angles, and Yang looked like she might never laugh again. 

“Ruby,” the brawler interrupted her panicked rambling. She grabbed one of her shoulders with her uninjured hand and forced her to make eye contact through her red-tinged bangs. The firm grip on her shoulder grounded her to reality more than she’d ever like to admit. “Where. Is. Ren?” There was a cracked, desperate tone in Yang’s voice, one that she’d never heard in it before, and hoped never to again.

“Why? Hey, listen what-” she started and then broke off. Her train of thought left the station without her on board, and now Ruby was left behind on the platform without a clue of what he’d been about to say.

Yang’s heart sank as Ruby made it halfway through her sentence and then got lost. She knew that her sister was easily distracted at the best of times, but as the adrenaline were wearing off, the effects of her now blatantly serious concussion were setting in more deeply. She’d been mostly coherent before, but adrenaline was a magical thing. Now her brain seemed to be drifting off to sea without any mooring lines.

Blood had her hair slicked up in odd places, and the red liquid dripped thickly from her clearly broken nose. Her face was a mess of bruises and scrapes, making it a patchwork of reds and purples, but a patchwork made by a seamstress who had never seen a blanket before in their life and was not too skilled with a needle. 

Her eyes were bloodshot and were alternating between squinting blearily at her face in a semblance of focus, darting fearfully around at the crowd, and gazing uncomprehendingly into the distance.

His cape was missing, and the lack of Ruby’s usual accessory left her looking strangely vulnerable. Yang wanted nothing more than to bundle her younger sister into a protective hug and never have her see the light of the dangerous world again.

In short, in Yang’s professional opinion, Ruby had been fucked right the fuck up. And unfortunately, she was going to be no help in finding Ren. Her sister honestly looked like she was one strong wind’s push away from falling over, and that would in no way help her find the rest of their friends.

“Jesus, they fucked you up,” she commented, grimacing.

“Yeah, shut up. Why’d you need Ren?” Ruby responded, and then squinted at her. “And you don’t look too great either, ya know,” she pointed out, gesturing with flapping hands to her general unkemptness.

She glanced down at herself as if it had only just occurred to her how she must look, and she shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

“No you haven’t,” called Weiss as the shorter girl limped over to them. Her dress was coated in a liberal helping of dirt and she was carefully putting less weight on one of her feet, but other than that, Yang was relieved to see that she seemed fine. Her signature scoff was in place, although the effect was somewhat softened by the fact that Yang knew she only defaulted to hiding behind that shield when her teammate was really worried..

“Have too,” Yang argued and cut off as the airship bearing Jaune sped away, lights flashing and sirens blaring. “Weiss, you’ve got your glyphs for height. Where’s Ren, Nora, and Blake?” The lack of nicknames for their missing friends underlined the seriousness of the situation.

As if the wailing sirens and gathering crowd of students exiting the building wasn’t doing that enough already.


	16. Tactical Larceny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desperate times call for desperate measures, and this was certainly desperate times.

Blake pushed her way through the crowd, Oscar’s hand holding her jacket in a vice grip. She’d seen the airship and police cars drive up, as well as she could through the crowd, but she’d been separated from Yang in the rush and that much was making her blood run cold with worry. The crowd of onlookers was chattering in low worried tones.

“Hey, why’s that dude in handcuffs?”

“Did you see who got in the airship?”

“Nah man, but they looked real messed up, dude!”

“Is that kid  _ crying? _ ”

“Who-”

“How-”

“ _ What?! _ ”

“Blake!!”

Said teen whipped around and was immediately swept up into a hug. A one-armed hug. Ren’s other arm was occupied with holding his Scroll pressed hard to his ear. “Yes, I’m here,” he said, clearly speaking to whoever was on the other end. The hug didn’t last because Ren was already pulling away to drag Blake and Oscar through the crowd.

“W-What’s going on??” Oscar yelped, voice shuddering with anxiety. Ren shook his head without looking back at him, still issuing instructions to whoever was on the other end of the phone. “W-Where’s Ruby?!” the boy stuttered, almost shouting over the crowd. “Or Jaune?” 

Blake was too busy examining Ren’s uncharacteristically disheveled appearance to answer. Oscar was being buffeted back and forth by the onlookers, and Blake grabbed his hand to keep them from being split up.

Splitting up had led to the hand shaped bruises wrapping around Ren’s neck.

“I have Blake and Oscar with me,” Ren rasped into his phone as they finally emerged from the crowd and stepped back onto the asphalt of the parking lot. He released Blake’s hand. Ren raised his arm to wave over his head to Nora. The ginger was turning in a tight circle with one hand holding Scroll to her ear. 

Where she’d gotten it, Blake couldn’t guess, because Blake knew for a fact that Nora’s had been smashed in the fight. Her eyes were scanning the crowd for  _ something _ . Blake could only assume she was looking for them.

“Blake! There you guys are, fucking finally!” Yang called, bounding over to them as best as she could with one of Ruby’s arms hooked over her shoulder to hold her up. The girl’s feet were tripping over themselves and his eyes were glassy, but she seemed mostly with them for the moment.

Blake caught Yang’s eyes, and Blake released Oscar’s hand and ran over to meet them. Yang shook off her sister's arm and Ruby actually managed to stumble forward a few steps before falling to her knees. 

Yang met her halfway and caught Blake around the waist in a desperately tight hug, tears prickling the corners of her eyes. “I thought something terrible happened to you,” she mumbled, burying her face into Yang’s hair.

Yang looped her arms around her shaking frame and whispered something into her hair that Oscar didn’t quite catch, but whatever it was only made Blake sob harder. Yang took Blake’s hand in hers, and Blake couldn’t tear her eyes away from the mangled remains of her partner’s robotic hand.

The seven of them converged on the flagpole, Oscar embracing Ruby’s unsteady form in a tight hug. He was shaking, and he couldn’t help but notice that they were once again short one person. Nora made bleary eye contact with Ren. “Where’s Qrow?” she asked, skipping any preamble. Her blue eyes were red with tears, and Oscar dreaded to think what could’ve happened to make her look so demoralized.

It did not escape him that the very person they’d been on a mission to “rescue” was probably the cause of the red head’s anguish. With a sinking suspicion that almost made him feel sick to his stomach, Oscar realized that he knew who had probably needed the quick ride to the hospital.

“Finally we’re on the same page, that’s what I was gonna ask!” Yang butted in, her eyes following the airship as it sped away. Still holding Oscar, Ruby pitched sideways for a moment, and Yang didn’t want the kid to get crushed under her because gods they had enough walking wounded already. “Come on sis, you’ll have time for that later,” she commented not unkindly, detaching Oscar from Ruby as gently as she could with only one hand.

Oscar wouldn’t release Ruby’s hand. He was still holding it when Yang hooked her sister’s free arm back over her shoulder and hauled her back to her feet.

“Guys,” Nora said, drawing Ren’s attention to her. “Please  _ please _ I-” Nora drew in a sharp breath. Her hands were fluttering, brushing down her jacket, picking at the drying blood crusting on her fingers, searching for something  _ anything _ to occupy them. 

“Please...we have to be there for him. We weren't there  _ before _ , and if we’re not there  _ now _ …” She trailed off, leaving them to fill in the blanks, hoping they knew what she simply couldn’t verbalize.

Ren, of course, understood her immediately, as he always did. Last time they weren't physically with Jaune, he got kidnapped and literally freaking tortured. So if they weren't there with Jaune to protect him in his vulnerable state, then that guy would kill him. The leader guy would  _ find _ him, and he would  _ kill Nora’s brother _ .

They had to protect Jaune now, because they’d failed so spectacularly to do so before.

Yang’s gaze hardened, and she nodded, already dialing her uncle’s number. 

“Right, come on,” Ren said, leading the way into the parking lot. 

“Yang?” Qrow’s voice said over the phone, the relief obvious even with his usual suaveness fighting to cover it up. 

“Yeah it’s me, Uncle Qrow,” she said, holding Blake’s hand tight in hers. They were  _ not _ getting separated again. “What’s the plan?”

“The kid is getting transported to a hospital in Mistral until he’s stabilized,” Qrow explained, and from what she could hear it sounded like he was getting onto transport of his own, “and then to an Atlas facility, orders come straight from James.”

“The general?” she asked, shocked. “What’s he got to do with this?”

“Seems like he’s got a soft spot for you kids,” Qrow chuckled weakly, “And the kid’s gonna need that kind of medical attention,” he finished more seriously, and Yang’s heart clenched.

Their squad was drawing curious gazes from some of the onlookers on the outskirts of the crowd, but Yang could not possibly care less about that at this point.

Her family was breaking apart, and it had come out of nowhere. 

Jaune had been missing for months now, and who knew how much of him still remained. This would either shatter their friendships, or it would draw them closer together. It all hinged on bringing Jaune back to himself, and he might’ve even forgotten how to even  _ pretend _ how to do that. But all of that was a problem for future Yang.

A problem for present Yang was how the hell she was going to fit seven people in the five-seat sedan that Qrow helpfully suggested they steal since there weren’t any airships available. A council scientist would remote unlock the doors, and then they’d deal with the fallout of the theft later.

Blake, wonderful, smart,  _ safe _ Blake, seemed to be spotting the seating issue as well, thank goodness. If it was up to Yang alone, she was certain that the car would never leave the parking lot. Nora spotted the indicated vehicle and rushed forward. Before Qrow could even unlock the doors, she was already trying to wrench the passenger side one open.

“Woah, ginger,” Yang called from the back of the caravan with Ruby and Oscar. “Calm the fuck down, maybe? Don’t break my uncle’s car.”

“Yang, I swear to the gods above,” Nora grumbled without turning around. She was pulling on the door handle with both hands now. “I am not dealing with anything right now, so if you don’t shut the  _ hell- _ ” On the other end of the scroll, Qrow unlocked the door and Nora nearly toppled over from how hard she’d been pulling on the door handle.

“Everyone get in,” Blake called, jogging around to the driver’s side door.

“Sorry to forever be the only voice of reason,” Weiss interjected, sounding anything but sorry, “but you're not all going to fit in this extremely tiny vehicle. You guys are all injured, and there’s no way you’ll all be able to fit”

“There’s no ‘you guys,’ Weiss,” Blake argued, ears flicking in irritation. “You’re injured, and you’re coming with us.”

“First of all, I am not injured, or at least not nearly as badly as some of the rest of you,” Weiss argued right back, stepping to one side to let Yang and her entourage pass by. “Second of all, if I am, which let me state again: I’m not,” she continued as Yang dumped Ruby’s boneless form in the back seat. “If I am and I do have to come along, there’s going to be even less space in this car.” 

“Duly noted,” Blake commented. “Now get in the fucking car.”

“It’s better if you just do what she says,” Yang advised as she helped Oscar clamber onto Ruby’s lap with more than a little blushing on the boy’s part and many stammered apologies, “before she pulls out her ‘disappointed mom’ voice.”

“I do  _ not _ have a disappointed mom voice!”

“You really do, Blake,” Ren commented blandly from the backseat, while Blake got to work hotwiring the car.

Ren slid in beside Ruby and Nora took the spot on his lap, and Ruby patted the back of the empty seat beside the driver, and gave Weiss a significant look. “Please Weiss?” Ruby pleaded, still clutching Oscar’s hand. “We hafta go, and you gotta come with us!” she slurred more than a little bit before dropping back into the warm haze of concussion.

Weiss rolled her eyes and harrumphed into the seat next to Blake. “Damn puppy dog face,” she mumbled, crossing her arms. “Can you even drive this thing?” Weiss grumbled, eyeing Blake’s hasty hotwiring job.

The engine rumbled to life, and Blake sat back against her seat, gripping the steering wheel slightly tighter than was really necessary. The Faunus just shrugged, not bothering to put on her seatbelt.

“She got the engine started, that’s good enough for me!” Yang flopped onto Weiss’s lap and slammed the door shut before the shorter girl could protest. “Let’s rock and roll!” she yelled, punching the ceiling with her good hand. This coupled with the indignant squawk issued from Weiss jolted Ruby awake.

It also helped that Blake chose that moment to slam her foot on the gas. The car jolted forward with a squeal of tires and several yelps of pain from the occupants as the jerk jolted their tender injuries. Nora was holding the safety bar above the door in a white-knuckled grasp, Ren’s hand clutched just as tightly in her other hand. 

Blake sped haphazardly out of the school parking lot at breakneck speeds, aiming vaguely for where she recalled the nearest hospital being, and Ren thanked whatever gods might be listening that any police that could give her a ticket were currently occupied at the warehouse behind them. 

_ ‘We’re coming, Jaune.’ _


End file.
